In the fall of 2020, we initiated a new program for our residents - community libraries. Partnering with a local non-profit, Brooklyn Book Bodega, we created a pilot library program in the community room of our building at 1825 Atlantic Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

The library includes approximately 1,000 books for residents of all ages, including foreign language and culturally appropriate selections, and is furnished with bookshelves, rugs and seating areas. In addition to the lending library, all residents under 18 years old received a personal bundle of five books to take home. Over the coming year we hope to build similar libraries in our other larger buildings with community rooms in Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens.

These libraries are community libraries in every sense of the word. Resident volunteers are recruited to be Reading Ambassadors and are trained in library maintenance systems such as check in and check out of books and book sorting and organizing. MHANY, together with Brooklyn Book Bodega, will help to organize monthly storytimes, literacy activities and other community programming. And MHANY will periodically distribute and collect surveys from residents and meet with resident volunteers to assess the library’s impact and evaluate ongoing needs.

The need for these libraries has only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has further reinforced the inequalities that exist in our country. In addition to the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on rates of infection and mortality in Black and Latino communities, we are witnessing the widening of education gaps that have long impacted socioeconomically disadvantaged children. Remote learning especially highlights disparities and barriers to learning such as unequal access to computers and wifi and fewer books in the home.