“I wanted to give back to the community, especially because we have so much.” “I wanted to teach my kids that we have to serve the community,” Peralta said. She came upon the idea of feeding the people in her new neighborhood. Her thoughts turned to a passage from the Book of Isaiah, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” So Peralta did what she often does: She prayed. “I was feeling this heavy feeling,” she said.

She said she started thinking about what she could do to make Hamilton Avenue a better place even before they moved in. Peralta’s family was the first to settle in one of the Hamilton 7 homes, back in April 2020. The families have agreed to be interviewed about their experiences throughout this year and we’ll adapt our reporting into an occasional series. Paterson Press, and the USA TODAY Network are following seven families who have moved into Habitat for Humanity-built houses on Hamilton Avenue in Paterson’s dangerous 4th Ward - the Hamilton 7. They want to 'live in peace': Seven families in new homes seek new lives on dangerous Paterson street. “We give them some food and some love,” she added. “I know they can be dangerous,” Perez said. That’s clear from the needle marks on their arms, the glassy look in their eyes, their inability to stand still or straight as their heads nod up and down and their legs teeter as if they are about to fall over.īut Peralta and Perez are not interested in judging the recipients of their charity. The two women know that most of the people they feed are high on drugs.

For food, they depend on the kindness of strangers like Peralta and Perez. The vagrants spend whatever money they have on heroin and cocaine.

Zombie-like addicts wander up and down their block of Hamilton Avenue day and night, heading to and from the many heroin dealers who loom on adjoining Summer and Auburn streets. Peralta and Perez pretty much live at the epicenter of Paterson’s drug scourge.

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