Uniacke Square was opened on May 7, 1966 as a 250-unit housing project. A library sits to the southeast, on Gottingen St., and a community centre, the George Dixon Centre, to the northwest. It was built to house the displaced population of Africville whose roots go back to refugees of the War of 1812, the Underground Railroad and American Civil War period. Homes in Africville were torn down as part of an urban renewal scheme between 1964 and 1967. Today, though some black residents of Uniacke Square are descendants of Africville, others are transplants from other Black Nova Scotian settlements who 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.
Present day
Today, two-thirds of the residents of the Square are women, and two-thirds are under 25. Less than half of the population are African Canadians; the percent of African Canadians once accounted for the majority of the population. The areas of Gottingen Street, Creighton Street, and Maynard Street surrounding the Square was traditionally home to a large middle-class African-Canadian population. Many of them were small business owners, or working professionals. However, uncontrolled gentrification of the North End has changed the area's demographics considerably. Uniacke Square supports a satellite police station, a parent resource centre, a small church and an office of the Salvation Army. Uniacke Square also has a community centre, The George Dixon Centre, named after the first Canadian boxing champion George Dixon, Centreline Studio a community based recording Studio and also home of the Uniacke Centre for Community Development The unemployment rate in Uniacke Square is 26.4%.
As of 2016, 91.5% of the population speak English as their first language, 3% speak Urdu, 1.5% speak Spanish, 1.5% speak Vietnamese and 1.5% speak French. The unemployment rate in Uniacke Square is 26.4%.
