Teen needs home that he can get to
BY TANYANIKA SAMUELSDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
All Malvon Moore wants is a new home for the holidays.
His life changed forever two months ago when a fight outside a Brooklyn school erupted in gunfire and a bullet pierced his back, paralyzing him.
"I'm in shock still," said the 15-year old, who now must use a wheelchair to get around.
Compounding the tragic turn of events, Malvon is now all but homebound because the two-bedroom apartment he shares with his grandmother and other relatives is on the second floor of a four-story walkup.
Unless someone can carry him up or down the stairs, he can't go out. The family would like to move to a street-level apartment, but finding one for the nearly $900 they now pay a month in rent has proved difficult in this city of skyrocketing real estate prices.
Friends have lined up help from a business ready to retrofit a new apartment for Malvon if one can be found. Ramps/Lifts for Better Living and New Yorkers Against Gun Violence have volunteered time and money.
Now Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz wants anyone who can help Malvon find a new home to come forward.
"[We] help our neighbors in need time and time again, and I know we'll do it for Malvon, too, especially at this time of year," Markowitz said.
Meanwhile, the once gregarious teen, who loved to play football with his friends, spends his days watching videos and reliving that terrible rainy Tuesday when tragedy struck.
Malvon had just started his sophomore year at Boys and Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant and was headed home about 3 p.m. on Sept. 19 when he spotted a fight brewing between two girls.
Curious, he joined the throng of spectators but started walking away when a group of boys confronted him. Moments later, they attacked him and shots rang out.
"I didn't realize I was shot. I just fell," Malvon said.
An ambulance took Malvon to Kings County Hospital, where he stayed for 57 days.
His grandmother, Bessie Walls, 58, who has raised the teen for seven years, was heartsick when she got the call that he had been shot.
"I was thinking the worst," she said. "I had just buried my sister a week earlier. I was all messed up."
Malvon is struggling to deal with his body's new reality.
"It's heavy," he mumbled about the weight of his legs. "It feels like I'm lugging something around."
A nurse's aide comes daily to help him get dressed, to assist him with the wheelchair and prepare meals. He also goes to rehab twice a week and soon will begin home-schooling. A new home with the promised retrofitting would make things better, his family says. In the meantime, they pray for a miracle he'll walk again.
"They [doctors] say they don't know. But we believe in God," Walls said. "He's got a lot of prayer behind him. He'll walk again."
To help Malvon, call the Brooklyn borough president's office at (718) 802-3832.