Jamillyah Palmer accepted keys on Friday to the best Mother’s Day gift ever: A home for herself and her two young sons. The Pontiac Housing Commission chose her family from among more than 100 applicants.

“I’m so thankful and grateful for this opportunity,” she said as her boys, Dallas, 8, and Dayton, 3, played near the 100-year-old Dutch colonial house in Pontiac. They’ve been living in a Pontiac apartment near a wooded area — not a bad place, she said, but not the best home for two active boys.

On Friday afternoon, Palmer cut a delicate red ribbon strung between the banisters of the former burned out structure and walked with her sons up the steps to the big front porch. Friends, new neighbors, city and county officials looked on.

Her wide smile dissolved into tears of joy the moment she accepted the keys from the housing commission’s deputy director, Yvette Transou.

Family members standing nearby embraced Palmer before they crossed the threshold into a completely furnished living room next to a modern open-concept kitchen. Palmer paused for a few more happy tears.

Palmer said she was overwhelmed by all she saw inside and outside.

“Even the basement is finished,” she said. “I’m so happy!”

The renovated home in the General Motors Modern Housing Neighborhood is across the street from a community garden and just a few doors away from Oakland Park, where a new skateboard park just opened near the site of the city’s future youth recreation center.

The renovated house has a yard where the boys can play — or even put up a trampoline. Palmer’s monthly payment will remain 30% of her income under the federal Housing and Urban Development Section 8 Voucher program. In a year or two, she said, she hopes to buy the house.

The commission’s executive director, Ahmad Taylor, said every family in Pontiac should have the opportunity to experience homeownership.

The commission is a public housing authority serving 17 communities in the county. Saving the Palmer house from demolition was intended to be a demonstration project for future restorations.

It became a learning experience, Taylor said.

The original budget was close to $250,000 but ended up closer to $350,000. Oakland County’s neighborhood and housing development department helped with the project.

Taylor visited community homebuilding and renovation projects in Detroit and Jackson. The Palmer home was renovated using all local contractors, he said.The renovated house has a detached two-car garage and new cement driveway. The company Goldner Walsh Garden and Home provided the landscaping, which included sod for the yard.

Moving on the first weekend of June will be relatively easy for the Palmers: Chris Furniture of Livonia provided furniture for the living room, dining room, bedrooms and more.

The best way to provide affordable housing, Taylor said, starts with lumber and a house plan, but he now has options for restoring other existing homes.

Vern Gustafsson, the housing commission’s project director and planner said Pontiac has at least 2,100 homes that could be renovated, potentially helping more than 5,600 people.

Palmer kept the news about the new home from her sons, but she drove with them through the neighborhood recently. As they passed the fresh-looking house on Ivy Street, “Dallas said, ‘Mom, we should buy that house!’ Now he thinks this (move) is his idea,” she said, laughing.