JerJuan Howard opens the Howard Family Bookstore at Puritan and Lesure

The corner of Puritan Avenue and Lesure Street, on Detroit's west side, now has a bookstore.

The Howard Family Bookstore held its grand opening on Saturday, April 25, with a ribbon cutting at 11 a.m. It sits at 13803 Puritan Avenue, in the Bethune neighborhood of northwest Detroit, in a building that had stood vacant for decades before JerJuan Howard bought it in June 2024 and spent roughly 18 months renovating it. Howard, born in 1997, grew up nearby and attended John R. King, the elementary and middle school a short walk from the store.

Inside, the space is built to do more than sell books. There is a coffee and tea bar, new and used books at accessible prices, work by local authors, a 3D printer for youth programming, and rooms set aside for events. Howard has described programming that runs from poetry nights to workshops, with the store working as a gathering place rather than a single-purpose shop.

"This community is me. And I am it," Howard told ClickOnDetroit. "I believe that this will begin to kind of shift the culture of what this community is and how it values itself."

The store is the latest in a string of neighborhood projects. Howard is an Army National Guard veteran who served as an IT specialist, and he graduated from Western Michigan University with a degree in criminal justice. In 2021 he founded the Umoja Debate League, a youth debate program that started with a handful of students after school and, with state grant funding, grew to dozens of schools, holding tournaments at the Wayne State University law school. He has also worked on youth and community programming inside the city, including with Detroit Public Schools.

Howard has framed the bookstore as something the neighborhood owns alongside him. He canvassed residents before opening to ask what they wanted on the shelves and what programming they would use.

"I want the message to be you can do this too," he said. "You can solve a problem for your community."

The Howard Family Bookstore is open Monday through Saturday at 13803 Puritan Avenue, at the corner of Lesure Street.