Nov. 20, 2025
Gather Housing Communities, a new affordable-housing nonprofit under the Indwell banner, plans to build a 164-unit residence, shown in this rendering, on King Street East just past Kenilworth Avenue in Hamilton.
A new non-profit with a mission to build hundreds of affordable apartments in the coming years for priced-out workers is planning its first project in Hamilton.
Gather Housing Communities, a fresh branch of local supportive housing operator Indwell, is starting with a 164-unit building in the east end.
Tenants of the future King Street East building are to earn less than $90,000, in line with a median income cap, with none paying more than 30 per cent of that on rent.
“From our point of view, there’s a need in the market for this kind of housing,” said Michael Brathwaite, senior associate of impact investing with Gather and Indwell.
Gather strives to fill the “missing middle” rental gap, drawing on Indwell’s half-century experience with deeply affordable, supportive housing.
Its first project will involve demolishing the former Trinity Lutheran Church on King, just east of Kenilworth Avenue and across from a shopping plaza in Rosedale.
Gather picks up the church site from Indwell, which bought the property for about $1.2 million, or about half of its appraised value, in 2024. The Hamilton Community Foundation stepped in to handle the mortgage.
The congregation left the building during the COVID-19 pandemic amid the amalgamation of four Hamilton-area houses of worship, which coalesced at Trinity Lutheran Church downtown.
The building, expected to be around 10 storeys, will have one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments.
Roughly 30 per cent of the units are also expected to qualify for government subsidies, providing a deeper level of affordability, Brathwaite noted.
To help raise capital, Gather aims to drum up $15 million through community bonds.
Starting at $1,000, the lowest tier offers 3.75 per cent annual interest over a three-year term. With a minimum $150,000 investment, the highest offers 4.85 per cent over a seven-year span.
In 2024, Indwell raised $6 million through a community bond campaign that directed funds toward four local projects.
Through the bonds, Gather hopes to cover predevelopment costs: “Everything to get shovel-ready,” said Brathwaite, pointing to site acquisition, design work and zoning applications as examples.
Then, the non-profit aims to land long-term government financing for construction, he said, with the goal of establishing a “revolving fund” for future projects.
Gather makes its debut amid a housing affordability crisis marked in Hamilton by street-level homelessness and more than 6,000 households on the waiting list for subsidized units.
But the affordability crunch’s grip is broadening, studies suggest.
In a recent report, CivicAction, a non-profit organization studying housing affordability in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, found middle-income earners are “becoming our region’s ‘invisible poor … ’”
“These middle-income earners are literally the backbone of our neighbourhood and communities, including health-care workers, education professionals, first responders, construction and skilled trades workers, transportation workers, service sector workers, arts and culture workers and public-sector workers,” the paper notes.
“Yet the numbers tell a stark story as nearly one million ‘essential workers’ across the GTHA earning good, middle-income wages from $52,000 to $104,000 annually are now struggling to secure stable and affordable housing in today’s market.”
They earn too much for subsidies, but with housing costs eating up 45 per cent to 63 per cent of incomes, they’re “well above the 30 per cent threshold experts consider sustainable.”
Earlier this fall, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reported a Hamilton resident would have to earn $29.16 an hour — or about $60,652 a year — to comfortably rent a one-bedroom apartment in the city.
The average asking rent of one-bedroom apartments and condos in Hamilton was $1,799 in October, according to Rentals.ca.
The construction of 1907 King St. E. is likely 12 to 18 months away, Brathwaite noted. Once shovels break ground, the building should welcome residents within 18 months.
That project is expected to mark the beginning of an effort to build 500 similarly affordable units in southern Ontario within five years and 300 annually after that, Brathwaite said.
“We do have ambitious plans to really make a dent in affordable housing.”