Volunteers of America to build Judge Sara J. Harper Village in Cleveland's historic Glenville neighborhood, a $1.2 million affordable housing project for women veterans of the army services....Harper and her family and Cleveland Councilman Kevin Conwell and Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell were among those at the ground breaking ceremony....Judge Harper is a veteran and retired state appellate judge in Ohio and former Cleveland judge....By field reporter Rhonda Crowder....By Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black and alternative digital news leader
Retired Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Sara J. Harper (eighth from left), also a former Cleveland judge, joins representatives of the Volunteers of America Ohio and Indiana Sections, family members, including Harper's sister Gloria (sixth from left), Cleveland Councilman Kevin Conwell (second left), and Cuyahoga Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell ( far left) for a ground breaking ceremony announcing the beginning of construction of the Sara J. Harper Village, affordable housing for women veterans in Cleveland's historic Glenville neighborhood, At the far right is Harper's pastor, the Rev Larry Harris, senior pastor at Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Cleveland
This is what the Sara J. Harper Village will look like after construction is completed on the $1.2 million project, an affordable housing project in Cleveland's historic Glenville neighborhood funded by the Volunteers of America Ohio and Indiana Sections
By Rhonda Crowder, field reporter
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Representatives of Volunteers of America along with the husband-wife couple of Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell and Cuyahoga County County Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell (District 7) recently participated in a groundbreaking ceremony to announce the beginning of construction of the Judge Sara J. Harper Village in Cleveland's historic Glenville neighborhood in Ward 9 on the city's largely Black east side.
The $1.2 million project is an affordable housing initiative for women veterans of the armed services that will be built specifically at 10531 Lee Avenue in Glenville.
Harper, 94, is a retired Ohio Eighth District Court of appeals judge, and a decorated Black Clevelander with a historic resume not only as a former judge but as a one time military judge, assistant city prosecutor, and president of the local NAACP chapter.
“By naming this facility after Judge Sara J. Harper the residents will know the history of what she’s done," said Councilman Conwell. "She’s been very successful and children need to see the success everyday.”
Harper, along with members of her family, attended last week's groundbreaking.
“Making sure all people are aware of their basic human rights has been paramount to the values held by Judge Harper. Defending those rights has been our mother’s passion. She has been an uncontested warrior for justice for Black people and especially for women and children,” said Contance Trumbo Haqq, the eldest of Harper and former Judge Trumbo's five grown children.
Funding for the project is coming from the Volunteers of America (VOA)
“Judge Sara J. Harper Village will provide affordable housing for the community’s most under-served segment of the veteran population and help meet the unique needs of women veterans as they return to civilian life,” said John R. von Arx III, president and CEO for the Ohio and Indiana offices of the Volunteers of America.
“von Arx said VOA is pleased to support services for women who have served their country.
"We are honored to provide a safe place for women veterans to heal and rebuild their lives," he said.
Randy Graves, Volunteers of America director of field operations, said Cleveland and the Glenville community were chosen to host the project of affordable apartments for women veterans without hesitation.
“There’s a lot of things that went into it,” said Graves when asked why they selected this site. “It needed to be close to the VA, in a walk-able neighborhood. ”
Graves said that once they learned about Judge Sara J. Harper, it became a no-brainer to name the facility in her honor.
“With her credentials, there was no more discussion," Graves said.
Councilman Conwell said the project will benefit Cleveland, and Glenville.
Conwell and his wife, County Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell, helped to negotiate the location of the project and said the Glenville location is the perfect fit.
“I’m very excited about the development,” Conwell said. “It’s going to benefit Ward 9. This site is going to bring jobs. It will help stimulate growth on Lee Avenue.”
(VOA) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1896 that is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia and has some 32 affiliates nationwide. It provides affordable housing and other assistance services primarily to low-income people throughout the United States and serves approximately 1.5 million people each year in 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.Other community members and members of Harper's family were also in attendance.
The Judge Sara J. Harper Village will consist of two buildings with 12 thoughtfully designed, efficiency-style apartments. Each building will be approximately 3,000 square-feet, housing four one-bedroom apartments and two, two-bedroom suites for women with children. The units are ADA accessible/compliant while the site will also include indoor and outdoor common space, an office, community room, laundry facilities and parking.
The Rev. Larry L. Harris, senior pastor at Mt. Olive Baptist Church , Harper's longtime pastor, described the project as “continuing the legacy of Judge Sara J. Harper” and referred to her as “a doer for justice for all.”
“What I love about you is that care,” said Harris to Harper, who is a longtime member of Mt. Olive. “And what I love about today, you’re able to smell the flowers.”
According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, women make up the fastest growing segment of the homeless veteran population with an estimated 1 and 4 experiencing sexual trauma. Volunteers of America is dedicated to helping people achieve well-being by offering hope, restoring dignity, and transforming lives, to ensure communities thrive.
For some 125 years its services have uplifted individuals, families, and communities including veterans, homeless individuals and families, men and women returning home after incarceration, low income seniors and those recovering and healing from addiction. Supportive wrap-around services and medical care at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veteran’s Affairs Hospital (VA) as well as Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital are nearby for use by tenants, who will also have access to Volunteers of America’s case management, employment services, support groups, individual counseling and other services.
A Cleveland native, who grew up in the Outhwaite Housing Projects, Harper graduated from the Cleveland Public Schools and then went on to become the first African American woman to graduate from Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law. She is the first woman to serve on the judiciary of the United States Marine Corps Reserve and she co-founded the first victims’ rights program in the country.
She is a former Cleveland NAACP who was later active in the organization during the height of Cleveland’s schools desegregation era and she served as an assistant city prosecutor and judge for Cleveland Municipal Court before winning a seat on the Eighth District Court of Appeals in 1990, becoming one of two African American women to be the first African-American woman elected to a state appellate court in Ohio.
Harper is also the first African-American woman to sit by assignment as a visiting judge on the Ohio Supreme Court and is the first African-American woman to run for a seat on that court, paving the way for other African -Americans to seek election to the state's highest court like current Ohio Supreme Court Justice Melody Stewart, the first Black and first Black woman elected to the Ohio Supreme Court bench.
The Sara J. Harper Children's Library that Harper founded sits in Cleveland's Outhwaite Housing Projects where Harper and her four siblings grew-up, all of them girls.
It is also where the late former congressman Louis Stokes, Ohio's first Black congressman was raised with his younger brother, the late Carl B. Stokes, Cleveland's first Black mayor who became Cleveland's first Black mayor when voters elected him in 1967, and the first Black mayor of a major American city.
Harper is the widow of the late former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge George Trumbo, and a sister of the late Connie Harper, a longtime editor of the Call and Post Newspaper.
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