Almost three months ago, 120 residents were displaced from their apartments after a fire tore through an East Cleveland apartment building.
We don’t just report the initial story—we follow through to its conclusion. Read and watch our previous reporting on this story below and see more stories that we've followed through on here.
One resident News 5 spoke to the night of the fire will soon have a place to call “home” again with the help of the Cleveland American Veterans Association, also known as CAVA.
Ronald Sipp is a veteran who was living in the Terrace Towers apartment building when flames took over, destroying his belongings and stripping him of a home.
Just a few months later, Sipp moved into his brand new home in an assisted, independent living facility in Cleveland.
“There's no words, there's just no words,” Sipp said.
CAVA helped Sipp replace the furniture he lost in the fire and helped him move into his new apartment on Friday.
“We have a warehouse, which is the basement of a church in Parma; two huge rooms where we collected donated furniture,” said Molly Carlin, the president of CAVA.
Sipp not only got to enjoy his new furniture, but he also received an upgrade in space compared to his apartment at Terrace Towers. Sipp previously lived in a studio apartment but now lives in a one-bedroom.
“Ron, being a Marine, needed our help,” Carlin said. “He was coming out of an efficiency apartment, so we had a lot more furniture to help him with.”
A group of veterans dedicated their Friday to helping Sipp settle into his new apartment.
“All veterans are brothers,” Sipp said.
The building Sipp is moving into has about 25 furnished apartments for veterans. If you would like to help CAVA with the work it does, click here.
“Ron's special; he's a special guy to us, so we were happy to do whatever we could for him,” Carlin said.
