Watertown Fire: Mom Raises Money For Son Who Lost Home

WATERTOWN, MA — Dozens of residents were displaced after a four-alarm fire tore through an apartment building on Robert Ford Road on Friday. There were no injuries but everyone in the 12 units affected were temporarily placed in hotels and public housing, and many lost all their belongings.

Jeremiah Cassidy, 29, was one of those who left his life in the burning building. His mother, Stacey Melanson, is trying to help him and others rebuild, one fundraiser at a time. Melanson set up a GoFundMe page to help her son buy all new clothes, furniture and belongings. His apartment, 62C, was next to the unit that caught fire, Melanson said. The last time they were able to get a look inside, the roof was collapsed and the space was unrecognizable.

The fundraiser goal is $8,000 and Melanson stresses in the description of the page, that every little bit helps. "If you want to help but don't want to donate cash, like I said he needs everything people can drop things off at my house," it reads. As of Tuesday, the page raised $1,335.

"He literally had just enough time to throw some pants on, grab his brand new dentures and run out," Melanson said. She lives in the complex just down the road on Lexington Street and said her son came right to her apartment following the evacuation — he had been in the shower when the fire alarms started blaring and officials came to evacuate him.

"He didn't even have time to put on a shirt, he was freezing," she said.

Left with just the clothes on his back, Cassidy and his mother anxiously waited for first responders to find his two kittens. One of the animals made it out of the home shortly after Cassidy but the second stayed hiding for eight hours, before it was found by a firefighter. Relieved to have them home, Melanson said the cats are still skittish and frightened days later.

Cassidy and his family hoped once the fire was put out they would be able to re-enter the apartment and salvage some belongings, but Melanson said when they peered in, the space didn't look like an apartment anymore. "It was mostly smoke and water damage, the entire roof collapsed in," Melanson said, "I don't know how anything could've survived that."

Now, Cassidy and several others are staying in a hotel until the Watertown Housing Authority can make permanent accommodations. The neighborhood banded together to help the families in the hotel, taking shifts cooking meals, checking in on each other and finding space for pets who can't stay in the hotel.

"A couple of local restaurants donated dinners and food the first few nights to the families, but you can't expect them to do that every day," Melanson said. She's been cooking pasta dinners for her son and the other residents so they don't have to spend money eating out.

Melanson started a separate fundraiser on Facebook to help her son and the 12 families who are staying in the hotel, to pay for laundry soap and laundry cards.

"They might not have much not but what they do have needs to be clean," Melanson said. "This community that is like family and we all try to stick together," the Facebook fundraiser reads.

Cassidy works in Brookline and used to walk down the road to the bus stop in his development to get to his job. Now, Melanson is afraid he'll be placed in another city because open housing is so scarce.

Moving Cassidy out of Watertown wouldn't just disrupt his work commute, but Melanson said it would take him away from the only home he and his family have known. "My entire family has been born and raised in Watertown for over 100 years," Melanson said, "This is home."

While Melanson has no plans to move out of Watertown in the near future and hopes her son can stay close, the fire cast a shadow of doubt over the safety of her building.

"It's really scary, I mean the fire spread fast, that thing went up like kindling," Melanson said, adding that she worries about her own apartment and whether the structures are safe.

"All these building are built the same so," she said, "it worries me."