"It was money that I had set aside to be donated as 'faith' money," said John Backes, a Dallas-raised 2006 Penn grad with a degree in history who works at a Chicago real-estate firm.
During a visit to the Simple Way in 2006, Backes learned about the grassroots work of the Christian group and walked away impressed.
When he heard about the fire, he felt he had to respond. Taking a lesson from his Bible - "Sell what you have; give to the poor; you will have treasure in heaven" - he sent two $10,000 checks, one to support the Simple Way and the other for the fire-affected families.
Philanthropy has helped. Still, the families struggle with the trauma.
"It was a fire. . . . We could have died," said Malave, whose mother, stepfather, and best friend, Crishel Delgado, 16, also escaped from the rowhouse that the family rented for $350 a month.
Wrecking crews have torn down the charred remains of her house. The blackened hole where it stood has been filled with soil and rolled flat.
While Malave hardened herself for the misery that followed the fire, she was not prepared for the hollow feeling of seeing her street denuded. "It looked so empty . . . like I never lived there," she said, eyes welling.
Nor was she prepared for the strain on family ties.
After the fire, she stayed briefly with her brother, his girlfriend and their toddler son in a small apartment near I and Ontario Streets, but group living was untenable in such tight quarters, she said.
She and Delgado spent four nights in a Roosevelt Boulevard motel, courtesy of a friend. He didn't stay there; it was a gesture of friendship, Malave said. But it made the man's "baby mom" jealous, she said.
