Uniacke Square

Uniacke Square is a public housing residential area in the north central area of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is flanked in the northeast by Brunswick Street, the southwest by Gottingen Street.

African Canadians make up most of the area's residents. Today, two-thirds of the residents of the Square are women, and two-thirds are under 25. Unemployment nudges 60 percent.

Uniacke Square was opened on May 7th, 1966 as a 250-unit housing project. A library sits to the southeast, on Gottingen St., and a Community center to the northwest. It was built to house the displaced Africville community whose roots go back to refugees of the War of 1812, the Underground Railroad and Civil War period. Homes in Africville were torn down as part of an urban renewal scheme between 1964 and 1967. Today most of the residents of Uniacke Square are not descendants of the people who lived in Africville but rather blacks from other areas in Halifax that moved to the area.

The neighbourhood around the Square is home to a number of front-line service agencies. There were four such agencies in the Gottingen Street area when Uniacke Square opened; today there are 20, including Adsum House for homeless and abused women and their families, Turning Point for homeless men and Hope Cottage, which provides meals to those who need them.

Uniacke square supports a satellite police station, a parent resource center, a youth center, a small church and an office of the Salvation Army.