Ian Avilez can’t get sufficient of books. A lot in order that the first-grader is studying at a third-grade stage. “I used to learn to him when he was a child,” stated his mom, Miguelina Minier. His kindergarten instructor requested about Ian’s expansive vocabulary. “Why does Ian know phrases that I didn’t even educate him?’ I’m like, ‘We reside on prime of the library,’” Ms. Minier stated.
It’s true. Ms. Minier and her son reside within the Sundown Park Library and Flats in Brooklyn, which opened in 2023 with the residential half constructed above the library. The primary library on this spot opened in 1905, and it lasted till 1970, when it was torn down. A brand new one opened in 1972, though, in time, it wanted plenty of love.
Ms. Minier remembers it properly. She’s lived within the neighborhood for 20 years and he or she’s been going to the library since she was a young person. “It was darkish, very, very darkish and it was small,” she stated. “Generally they didn’t have the e-book that you just have been on the lookout for.” When she developed an curiosity in legal justice, she needed to take a look at reference books about police academy exams. “They didn’t have them,” she recalled.
By the point her son was born, the constructing wanted repairs — to a damaged air-conditioner and an outdated electrical system, to call simply two. The Brooklyn Public Library couldn’t afford the mandatory work. So it partnered with the Fifth Avenue Committee, a nonprofit developer, to renovate the library and add 49 items of the reasonably priced housing.
To qualify to reside within the constructing, Ms. Minier needed to have an revenue between 30 and 80 p.c of the world median revenue, which was $86,380 when she utilized. The variety of items contains eight residences that profit from a project-based Part 8 subsidy program and 9 residences put aside for households and people who previously skilled homelessness.
“I didn’t notice that it was going to be a constructing on prime of the library,” Ms. Minier recalled. “I believed they have been simply going to resume the library and that’s it. However then, the constructing got here and I used to be like, ‘Oh, I received to use for that.’”
It wasn’t Ms. Minier’s first time making an attempt her luck at a housing lottery. “I’ve had greater than 38 purposes. However this one was meant to be.” She was chosen out of 60,000 candidates.
The residence she and her son moved into has two bedrooms. It’s the first time that the 6-year-old and the 34-year-old every have a room of their very own. “Think about,” she stated, “33 years dwelling with any person else, not having your individual area. This place is a blessing.”
$1,350 | Sundown Park, Brooklyn
Miguelina Minier, 34
Occupation: Relationship supervisor for a nonprofit financial institution
On recognition: As a result of Ms. Minier has come to know so many individuals within the neighborhood by the work she does, it’s uncommon that she will be able to exit with out being acknowledged. “Each time I stroll down the road I hear, ‘Hello, Miguelina. Hello, hello, hello, hello — just like the president,” she stated, laughing.
On leaving New York: Despite the fact that Ms. Minier hopes that she and Ian keep within the residence for years to return, she does generally marvel what it might be prefer to reside in a home. “I wish to have a yard the place I could make barbecue,” she stated. “My son tells me that he needs to have a trampoline to leap and I wish to give him that.”
Ms. Minier, born within the Dominican Republic, got here to the United States as a baby and her dwelling circumstances have at all times been tight. “I’m from a overseas nation,” she stated, “and once you come right here, you don’t have your individual area. Despite the fact that you’re 13, 14, you’re nonetheless sleeping with a cousin or any person else. Ian, thank God, he’s fortunate. He has one thing that I by no means had earlier than. He has his personal area.”
Ian, born in Sundown Park, had grown up in crowded residences for the primary few years of his life, so getting his personal room was sufficient to make him excited in regards to the transfer — and that was earlier than he came upon in regards to the library downstairs. “That got here afterward,” Ms. Minier stated. “When the library was about to open, we had the chance to have a tour within the library for the tenants. When he noticed that, I defined to him, ‘We’re the primary ones seeing the library as a result of we reside on prime of it.’ He was like, ‘Oh, mommy. Oh my God, oh my God!’”
If it have been as much as Ian, he and his mom would go to the library every single day. “I’m the one who’s like, ‘Not right now, Ian, mommy’s drained — let’s go one other day,’” Ms. Minier stated. Nonetheless, they make it not less than thrice per week.
Ms. Minier reads to Ian each on occasion, however today it’s principally him studying to her from favorites just like the “Pete the Cat” collection and “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!”
When her son is in class, Ms. Minier spends her personal time within the library. She works from house and it’s useful to have entry to the library work areas.
“They’ve chargers,” she stated, “they’ve the Wi-Fi so that you can join, they usually even have plugs so that you can join your machine. To me, personally, the library means lots. The workers are all very, very useful. You ask them for any useful resource, something, and they’re going to assist.”
Ms. Minier works for a nonprofit financial institution that lends to entrepreneurial girls, many who reside within the neighborhood. “The work that I do focuses on the those who we see generally on the prepare promoting churros or promoting chocolate or generally you see them on the street promoting mangoes and stuff like that. We give out a small mortgage to assist them get their enterprise began.”
The most effective a part of the work is seeing a metamorphosis in her neighbors. “Once they textual content me and say, ‘Hey, Miguelina, look, now I’ve my very own churros cart,’ I get blissful as a result of it’s one thing that they obtain, identical as me, that they arrive from a special nation they usually achieved one thing.”
It isn’t simply the Wi-Fi and books and quiet area that the library gives Ms. Minier and her son. It’s additionally pleasure. On a current area journey together with his classmates to a close-by fireplace station, Ian had the possibility to level out the library. “He instructed all his mates, ‘That’s the place I reside. I reside on prime of the library.’”
Upstairs, he instructed them, is the place he has a room of his personal with a shelf for each e-book he checks out.
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