A newly renovated park in Paterson, New Jersey is once again overrun with drug addicts, vagrants, prostitutes and trash dumpers, but one homeless man is fighting back.
Roberto Clemente Park, a 12-acre site in one of Silk City's roughest areas, stood out as a symbol of urban blight when Rolando Vásquez first came here five years ago, he told The Washington Post.
“When I came here, there was open drug use,” said Vasquez, 44, a homeless man who sleeps under a dilapidated gazebo with his pit bull Luna and iguana Ibeji. “People were openly using drugs, and I was like, 'Come on, this isn't OK around here! These kids deserve better!'”
But the addicts ignored him.
“They were just yelling, 'Calm down! This is Paterson! Calm down!'” he said.
The city has invested in the park, located just a few blocks from Eastside High School, where legendary “Lean on Me” Principal Joe Clark once roamed the school grounds, spending $200,000 in 2021 to install a slew of brand new playground equipment.
But the drug dealers, addicts and limping vagrants soon returned. According to The Record. Now Vasquez, a lifelong Paterson resident and aspiring artist, is back to fight.
Locals say, in true New Jersey style, Vasquez isn't afraid of anyone.
“He keeps dealers out of this park,” Mike Johnson, a city dweller who is 47, said last week. “If he sees a dealer, he approaches them alone and says, 'No, not today. Not here.'”
“I really respect him for that,” Johnson continued. “He's putting his life at risk by doing that.”
Meanwhile, Vasquez, a deeply religious man, has been tirelessly digging through needles, shoveling trash and trying to clean up his little corner of the troubled city every day for the past five years.
“Even when I was young, this park was filthy!” he said. “This park was a symbol of how filthy Paterson was. Now I'm 44 and I want to talk to people about reducing their health and environmental impact, reducing their carbon footprint.”
“I get up every day to clean up for my kids,” he continued. “It took about three years. I had to use a stiff rake to remove the needles that were buried in the dirt and caked on.
“But now it's extremely rare to see needles, and when you do, they're usually really old.”
His work has been especially notable from appreciative residents.
“I see him cleaning up the park every day,” said Abigail Medina, 52, who has lived in Paterson for the past 30 years.
“He goes to work at 7am every morning,” she continued. “He has a better job than the city.”
When asked whether he, rather than the city government, was responsible for keeping the 111-year-old park clean, Vásquez sided with the workers.
“Oh, come on!” he said. “I have nothing against the people who work here. The city workers, the people who come to clean the park, they work really hard. They're great people.”
But even with a local crew and Vasquez, it's an uphill battle.
Local residents told local media that they often see drug addicts sleeping on playground equipment, leaving toys on the ground, and bathing in sprinklers and water play areas installed by the city for children.
“I call them the walking corpses,” said Ronald Kautz, 72, of Paterson. He told the Record “It's really bad – I even had my car window smashed,” he said as he walked his dog on nearby Market Street.
Locals added that after homeless people and drug addicts bathe every day, filthy, oily debris backs up into the drains, causing the water to stagnate and creating a putrid swamp in the middle of the concrete forest.
Even Vasquez agrees there's a problem.
“Look now, this is what it looks like after it's been fixed!” he said. “It's a cesspit. You don't want your kids walking through water that doesn't have proper drainage.”
He also wishes the city would invite more people to come and collect the enormous amount of trash dumped there, which he says he can't handle on his own.
“We introduced larger, more user-friendly trash cans, [garbage] “If we had collected it, the park would be a lot cleaner,” he said.
Mayor Andre Sayet said the city has a plan to address the problem, specifically through a program called “Real Fix,” which would provide addicts with drugs such as suboxone to help them break their dependence on illegal opioids.
It's a citywide program, but the effort, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, is trying to pull people from places like Roberto Clemente, Sayeh said.
The city also installed a metal fence around the entire park to “keep out some people who may be trying to get into the park.”
Sayeh said the Paterson Police Department will begin conducting weekend foot patrols in several areas of the city, including parks.
Taken together, he thinks that could make the neighborhood a little safer in the long run.
“I think it's easy to say, 'Just get the drug users out,'” he says. “But what's the permanent plan or solution? Where are they going to go? They end up going to the parks that we've invested so much in.”
He also praised Vasquez.
“Everybody has a role to play,” the mayor added. “He's doing his best… [Department of Public Works] “The same thing goes for that park. But the problem is people with bad habits. If they don't change, there will be people who ignore the rules and think they can throw trash anywhere.”
Meanwhile, the makeshift park ranger, who calls cleaning “my drug,” plans to continue his daily patrols.
“It's been a great experience every day for the last five years,” he said.
“Trying to help the world…it's the most amazing feeling I can get.”
