Sept. 30, 2025Top of FormBottom of Form
Miranda Rappazzo, executive director of Sacajawea Non-Profit Housing, left, sprinkles tobacco on the newly broken land at 204 Gage Ave. N., where the agency is building 40 units of supportive housing.
Teviah Moro/The Hamilton Spectator
Tobacco sprinkled with well wishes marks the construction site where 40 units of supportive housing for Indigenous people struggling with homelessness will rise from a vacant lot in northeast Hamilton.
Spirituality is a key element that sets apart Sacajawea Non-Profit Housing’s future six-storey building, executive director Miranda Rappazzo said after a groundbreaking ceremony at 204 Gage Ave. N. Monday.
In fact, it’s built into the design, with a landscaped rooftop terrace that incorporates a ceremonial fire feature.
Sacajawea Non-Profit Housing Inc. is building 40 units of supportive housing at 204 Gage Ave. N. with a landscaped rooftop terrace that incorporates a ceremonial fire feature. “With our Indigenous culture, fire is very sacred to us, so that will help the tenants with their healing process, their healing journey,” executive director Miranda Rappazzo told The Spectator.
Invizij Architects Inc.
“With our Indigenous culture, fire is very sacred to us, so that will help the tenants with their healing process, their healing journey,” Rappazzo told The Spectator.
Supporters wearing orange shirts ahead of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation joined her to celebrate the start of construction in a dug-up parcel near the corner of Gage and Barton Street East.
Sacajawea’s project, which is across the street from the FreshCo shopping plaza, will offer 40 bachelor units of deeply affordable housing with Indigenous-focused support services.
Sacajawea Non-Profit Housing Inc. is building 40 units of supportive housing at 204 Gage Ave. N.
Invizij Architects Inc.
Health services are to be a core component of that, but in addition to clinicians, a crucial part of the support will be through elders offering counsel grounded in spirituality, Rappazzo explained.
“There’s more the traditional side to it.”
Sacajawea’s project advances during a rising tide of homelessness in Hamilton where roughly 2,000 are without housing, about 6,000 await subsidized units and Indigenous people continue to be overrepresented.
A 2024 “point in time” count that tallied 1,216 in its snapshot found that in a related survey of 807 people, 195, or about 24 per cent of respondents, identified as Indigenous.
Members of the Sacajawea Non-Profit Housing’s board of directors pose for a photo after breaking ground on the construction of 40 supportive-housing units at 204 Gage Ave. N. on Monday.
Teviah Moro/The Hamilton Spectator
That’s in stark contrast to local Indigenous residents overall, who represent only about two per cent of the city’s population, according to 2021 census results.
That disproportion is rooted in a colonial aftermath punctuated by “systemic barriers, intergenerational trauma, and racial discrimination,” noted an analysis led by the Coalition of Hamilton Indigenous Leadership as part of the point-in-time project.
Among those specific findings was that many Indigenous survey respondents had been homeless by the time they were age 18 or younger (40 per cent), and nearly half (47 per cent) reported experiences with foster care or youth group homes.
Sacajawea Non-Profit Housing Inc. is building 40 units of supportive housing at 204 Gage Ave. N.
Invizij Architects Inc.
“These experiences highlight the ongoing impacts of colonial policies that have separated Indigenous children from families and communities,” the coalition’s report stated.
Respondents most frequently flagged low income and high rent as barriers to housing, but they also identified physical limitations (50 per cent), mental-health challenges (78 per cent) and substance-use issues (72 per cent) as factors.
For Indigenous people facing such challenges, housing must “be culturally safe,” Rappazzo said during the groundbreaking event, noting it must be “grounded in dignity, guided by tradition and nurtured by community.”
The apartments at 204 Gage will be “more than structures,” Dixie Doxtador, Sacajawea board chair, reflected in her remarks. “They will be places of healing, safety and belonging.”
The project is “profoundly personal” for him as an Indigenous person, added Justin Lewis, director of Hamilton’s housing secretariat, a municipal office tasked with allocating government funding to projects.
Sacajawea Non-Profit Housing Inc. is building 40 units of supportive housing at 204 Gage Ave. N.
Invizij Architects Inc.
“This development is more than just bricks and mortar,” Lewis said. “It’s about building hope. It’s about restoring dignity. It’s about creating opportunities for those who need it most.”
The federal government is providing $12.2 million in capital dollars for the project. The city, meanwhile, has directed $1 million from its share of the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, and waived $1.3 million worth of fees and charges.
Another $200,000 for Sacajawea’s Gage Avenue North building is part of $8.2 million the city earmarked in January for various providers with upwards of 800 affordable and supportive units planned between them.
Municipal commitments are key to landing support from upper levels of government to bridge capital gaps, non-profits have emphasized in recent years while pushing the city for financial backing.
Sacajawea Non-Profit Housing Inc. is building 40 units of supportive housing at 204 Gage Ave. N.
Invizij Architects Inc.
But provincial health dollars to operate supportive housing are another piece of the puzzle, said Rappazzo, who noted those discussions are the next order of business for her small organization.
“We’re good for construction, but now it’s delivering the program to the tenants.”