Victim Still Lives With His Assault

Source: Gay City News
By: Duncan Osborne

Roughly four years after Steven Pomie nearly beat him to death on a street in Brooklyn's Brownsville section, Dwan Prince still lives with that assault.

The 31-year-old Prince for the most part is able to walk to medical appointments for the partial paralysis that resulted from the attack or for his AIDS diagnosis, but there are a few days each month when he needs his electric wheelchair.

"Usually I use the chair when my knee starts getting a lot of pain," Prince said.

The paralysis affects the entire left side of his body and the muscles on that side have contracted, shortening his left leg and reducing his use of his left arm. Now he walks "up and down," Prince said, referring to the bobbing motion he makes when he takes a stride.


He divides his time between the single room occupancy hotel he lives in on West 137th Street, Harlem United, an AIDS group, and the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), traveling by bus from one to the other for meals, meetings, and to meet friends.

"Harlem United is like a family," he said. "GMHC really can't help me, because I'm not really a client there."

A current struggle is getting the city's HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA), an agency not known for its effectiveness in serving its 31,000 clients with AIDS, to move him from his small room in the SRO to a larger space that can accommodate him and his wheelchair.

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