Free Books for NYCHA Families

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss

This summer, NYCHA’s youngest residents are going on amazing new adventures found in the pages of books. During the month of June, NYCHA handed out 62,700 free books to children and families at six community centers in the five boroughs.

The books are courtesy of the National Book Foundation’s Book Rich Environments (BRE) program, which helps children living in public housing develop a lifelong joy of reading. This is the third year that NYCHA received books to distribute from the BRE program.

NYCHA, along with BRE, the NYC Department of Youth & Community Development, and other community partners, distributed the free books at community centers at Edenwald Houses, Bushwick Houses, Wise Consolidation, Amsterdam Houses, Woodside Houses, and West Brighton Houses.

Launched in 2017, BRE is organized by the National Book Foundation in partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Center for Families Learning, U.S. Department of Education, and Urban Libraries Council.

In 2018, BRE distributed 422,000 books in English and Spanish; by the end of 2019, it will have provided over one million free books to families living in public housing across the country.