Mercedes Perez ignores squealing children at the McGovern Stella-Link Library while she traces her finger down the page of a dictionary, honing her English skills more than 20 years after she emigrated from El Salvador.

Schenika Rucker, a single mother, takes advantage of a computer with reliable WiFi to check off her to-do list. Her 12-year-old son plays nearby with the other children.

Pie Suttitanasub fingers through books, waiting for his younger sister to arrive with a group of her middle school friends.

“The library is important to us,” he said. “The parks and libraries are the two things that everybody should need.”

It’s a bustling weekday afternoon in the library, which reopened in May after it became one of 12 branches in Houston and Harris County that shuttered because of damage from Hurricane Harvey. For many in Houston, libraries remain an integral part of their communities, but the role they play extends beyond books and internet. They serve as neighborhood meeting spaces, shelters for the homeless, classrooms and lunch rooms.

Of the 12 libraries, one Harris County branch and seven Houston branches remain closed, many with indefinite reopening dates. The city estimates between $1 million and $5 million will be needed to repair most buildings, but library officials say they’re stuck in limbo waiting for recovery funds from FEMA and other federal grants to move forward. Meanwhile, temporary pop-up libraries and mobile bookstores help satisfy the needs of regular customers.

The closures leave a noticeable void in the community, said Amy Campbell, the branch manager at Harris County’s Katherine Tyra Branch Library in west Harris County.

“I’m tearing up a little bit even just thinking about it now,” she said, referring to Katherine Tyra’s nine-month closure. “Sometimes people don’t see that the value of the library is for the community, but the community here definitely sees the value. So it was hard not knowing what would happen.”

What’s closed

Katherine Tyra and the Barbara Bush branches both reopened in June 2018 after close to $1 million in repairs to each space. Kingwood opened in May 2018 with a $1.3 million total repair cost, according to library officials.

The Baldwin Boettcher Branch Library, located north of Houston along Aldine Westfield Road, is the only county library that still needs repairs to reopen.

The building is located on the Mercer Botanic Gardens campus. In its stead, “the Little Blue Library” - housed in a small blue shed on the campus - offers a small selection of books for checkout. It also continues to offer story time, English classes and a summer meals program for kids.

It will take an estimated $916,000 to repair the main library building, and Harris County Commissioner Jack Cagle said the targeted reopening date is 2021.

The new designs will further incorporate the library into the surrounding park. The building will also include more flood-resistant material, but federal funding is holding up the process, Cagle said.

“The federal government is thorough, but it’s not fast,” Cagle said, adding that FEMA and other federal grants will fund the eventual rebuild.

Houston Public Libraries are in a similar situation with a cumbersome funding process, said deputy director Nicole Robinson. FEMA funds were approved for the city, but money has yet to be funneled to all the damaged libraries, she said.

“It’s not moving as quickly as we’d like, but it’s moving,” she said.

Private donors have helped them re-prioritize some repair work. For example, Aramco Services Co. earlier this year donated the funds needed to reopen the Dixon Neighborhood Library as a new technology center with a photo studio, music studio, graphic design software and other features. It’s expected to open by mid-2020.

As for the other branches, Robinson said there’s no set timeline for construction. At least four of the seven shuttered city libraries are tentatively slated to reopen in 2020, including the Flores Neighborhood Library, the Kendall Neighborhood Library and the Melcher Neighborhood Library.

One city library, McCrane-Kashmere Gardens, still needs a structural assessment to the determine the final cost of repairs. During Harvey, a storm sewer drainpipe broke below the slab, allowing rainwater to back up into the building.

The Meyer Neighborhood Library will be replaced by the $14 million Westbury Neighborhood Library, but that project still is in the beginning stages.

Lastly, the Lakewood branch will not be rebuild at its current location, 8815 Feland St. It flooded during Tropical Storm Allison, Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Harvey, and library officials say they’re looking for a new location.

The impact

The city’s library system set up a few temporary mini-branches where cardholders can go to turn in books and pick up holds they’ve requested. Bookmobiles show up at parks, schools, churches and community centers.

But while repairs to the main libraries linger, regular customers miss out on an integral part of their routine. According to a 2016 study from the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of the 1,601 Americans who responded said public libraries provided them with the resources they need. Meanwhile, 66 percent said closing their local public library would have a major impact on their community .

On a recent afternoon, Alicia Garriz sat with her young daughter at the Stella-Link library, the system’s most visited branch. She was waiting for her son to get out of school while her daughter read at a small table.

Garriz, who moved to Houston five years ago from Spain, said the library is her only option to get books for the ESL students she tutors. It also encourages her daughter to develop her English.

“When she first came here she was three years old, and sometimes we don’t have anything except textbooks to read at home,” Garriz said. “We only have the library and the school.”

Mercedes Perez also developed English skills at the library after moving from El Salvador in the 1990s. She enrolled in English classes, but over the years, she’s also taken advantage of the array of newspapers and magazines.

“Some words, I don’t understand the meaning and I look through the dictionary,” she said.

Several feet away, Suttitanasub, 28, waited for his sister to get out of class at the nearby Pershing Middle School. He said she relies on the library to do homework because she doesn’t always have space at home. For his 6-year-old daughter, who was there playing with other kids, the library keeps her away from the distraction of technology.

“From what I understand, most kids nowadays don’t read very well because everything is always televised,” he said. “So it’s important for her not to ask as soon as she gets to the car, ‘Hey I want to get my tablet.’ She’ll say ‘I want to go to the library.’”

For some residents, a library is more of a necessity.

Rucker, the single mother at the Stella-Link branch, she said she couldn’t afford the internet bill at her home. Her 12-year-old son needs the computers for his homework, while she uses the internet for tasks like paying for car insurance.

It also serves as a “safe haven” for her son, she said.

“The different programs for him to be involved in, without getting involved in stuff on the streets, that was a big advantage,” she said. “That’s why I’ve stayed here in the area.”

julian.gill@chron.com