The 14th Prevention Matters! panel shone a light on NiGiNan Housing Ventures, an Indigenous-led organization in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) that is transforming what homelessness prevention looks like when guided by ceremony, community, and cultural strength.
Hosted by Cohen Pinkoski, Research Assistant on Indigenous Homelessness at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH), the conversation brought together NiGiNan’s CEO, Carola Cunningham, alongside housing staff Christine Davies, Sarah Radley, and Jessie Molody, who shared how their work at NiGiNan is rooted in Indigenous worldviews that honour spirit, humanity, and collective care.
“We recognize that we’re pitiful human beings, and we forget that we’re actually spirits experiencing a human experience,” Carola opened. “Before we start anything—meetings, case management, tours—we pray. We invite our ancestors, creator, grandfathers and grandmothers to help us do good work.”
Through stories and reflection, the panel offered a glimpse into how NiGiNan weaves ceremony and compassion into every aspect of its housing work, and redefines what “supportive housing” means from an Indigenous lens.
About NiGiNan Housing Ventures
Founded in 2014, NiGiNan Housing Ventures was created to meet the housing needs of Indigenous people who had been “unsuccessfully served” by mainstream systems. As Carola explained when she first joined NiGiNan as CEO, “The board had no policies, no programs—just a desire to house Indigenous people where they felt at home.” It became her mission to figure out how to do just that.
Under Carola’s leadership, NiGiNan’s first project, Ambrose Place, opened its doors that year. It became a home for those who had spent decades on the streets and were considered “hardest to house.” From the beginning, the work was led not by bureaucracy but by ceremony.
“We decided we were going to lead through ceremony,” said Carola. “Our vision and mission are based on the four natural laws: kindness, honesty, sharing, and strength. These four spirit laws that were embedded in us when we made a decision in the heavens with creator to come to this world. Creator loved us so much that he embedded those natural laws inside of us, and we decided that that was the best foundational piece that we could build NiGiNan on. When you live that, and when you embody those teachings and you share them with your tenants, miraculous things begin to happen.”
Those teachings guide all of NiGiNan’s programs today, which, in addition to the flagship Ambrose Place, include Pimatisiwin, offering permanent supportive housing, Omamoo Wango Gamik, a family site that houses young families, mosoms (grandpas), kôhkoms (grandmas), aunties, and uncles, and McArthur Place, modelled after the successful Ambrose Place.
Indigenous-Led Means Human-Led
When asked what “Indigenous-led” means to them, panelists described a leadership approach rooted in humanity, relationship, and humility.
“As somebody who was once stepped over on the street, broken by different systems, and not welcomed into spaces, ” said Christine Davies, now NiGiNan’s Housing Program Manager, “I know what it’s like to be seen only for your behaviour. Here, we see people for who they are as human beings.”
At NiGiNan, staff are encouraged to lead with empathy rather than authority. Their spaces are intentionally decolonized and non-institutional—no tall glass partitions or security guards—and residents are treated as relatives, not clients.
“When we talk about being Indigenous-led, it’s not just about having access to ceremony or having access to smudging. We walk beside our folks,” Christine added. “We’re not walking in front or behind them, unless they need us to carry them for a bit.”
For Sarah Radley, site supervisor at Pimatisiwin, the freedom to show up as a whole person is what makes NiGiNan’s environment so powerful: “There’s no hidden agenda. You just come and be a human being. You’re allowed to say ‘I love you,’ which is really huge. A lot of our people haven’t heard that in a long time.”
Being Indigenous-led is also about dismantling hierarchies and having the strength to be vulnerable with one another. Jessie Molody, manager at Ambrose Place, adds, “I think one thing that’s really beautiful that we do is we come together in a circle, and a circle is a way to represent that nobody is above or below each other, and that we’re all human and that we’re all on the same level as each other.”
Even within staff relationships, leadership is modelled through trust and shared experience. Christine recalled her supervisor inviting her to do a performance check-in, not in an office, but while paddle-boarding on the river.
“It was one of the most beautiful conversations we had,” she said. “That’s leadership in a decolonized way—seeing the whole person.”
Ceremony, Community, and Healing
Ceremony is not an occasional event at NiGiNan; it is the foundation of the organization. Each day begins with smudging and sharing circles that invite residents and staff to center themselves and connect spiritually.
When someone passes on, their life is honoured through ceremony and song, with a community gathering before they leave for the spirit world. Staff also receive five ceremony days off annually to go medicine picking and to practice other spiritual activities.
“It’s not just about attending sweats every Friday, having our morning sharing circles and having our morning smudges,” Christine explained. “It’s about the way we walk through our spaces with prayer, with intention, with kindness.”
For Jessie, reconnecting through ceremony has been life-changing:
“I didn’t have any sense of spirituality before coming to work here. Being on the land, going to sweat lodge—it connected me more than I ever thought possible. Ceremony helped me see myself as a whole person: mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. There were times where I would end up crying because my spirit needed to let something out in that space and with that smudge and with the songs, and it’s really beautiful that when we reconnect with ceremony, we’re doing that as humans, and we’re not thinking about who’s a worker and who’s a resident.”
Carola emphasized that ceremony is especially vital for residents navigating addiction:
“When do people most need the help of the medicines? We tell them, ‘Just practice sobriety one day and come sit in the lodge.’ And you make sure, even if they’re not using the medicines, those medicines are burning because those medicines have a direction. They have a purpose.”
Family, Youth, and Intergenerational Care
NiGiNan’s prevention work extends beyond individuals to families and youth. At Omamoo Wango Gamik, the organization’s family building program, community aunties, uncles, and kôhkoms are intentionally placed to surround parents and children with love and guidance.
“We work as a collective community toward removing CFS [Child & Family Services] involvement,” said Christine. “If a mom or dad needs to go to treatment or has a relapse, kôhkoms or aunts or uncles come in and support while mom and dad can work on themselves. Our children don’t leave that space—we wrap them in community.”
NiGiNan is also developing youth-specific housing, including new eight-plexes next to Pimatisiwin, to support young people aging out of care or seeking safe, culturally grounded homes. They are also working with other youth agencies to build a shared database in the community so youth don’t have to continuously retell their stories and relive their trauma.
These projects reflect NiGiNan’s long-term goal: to prevent homelessness by rebuilding systems of kinship and belonging fractured by historical and ongoing colonization.
Lessons for Prevention Practitioners
When asked what advice they would offer others working to prevent Indigenous homelessness, the panelists shared simple but profound guidance:
Be human first. “Show up, be kind, and remember that small gestures matter,” Sarah said. “They’re really important to the people that we work with, being noticed. They enjoy being hugged, and they enjoy conversation.”
Take care of yourself. “Take mental health days and take a breather for ourselves so that we can show up for the folks that we’re serving at 100%,” Christine reminded. “We have to be grounded, to be the buffalo that stands strong.”
Listen more than you speak. As Jessie noted, “if you’re going to take up space, make sure that you’re holding space and that you ask permission. Don’t share somebody’s story unless they’ve given you their blessing.”
Celebrate small wins. Whether it’s a resident saying “good morning” for the first time or choosing a day of sobriety, every step is a victory. “If somebody just shows up a little bit better than they were yesterday, I think that we really need to continue to celebrate that, and I think that that’s huge for folks to even just say hello,” adds Christine.
“You never give up on your people,” Carola concluded. “The land heals the people. We come from the land—that’s where our bodies and our spirits come from. Mother Earth is our original first mother. That chance to sit on our mother and be with our mother heals us.”
Walking Together Toward Prevention
NiGiNan Housing Ventures shows what prevention looks like when guided by Indigenous knowledge, when healing is relational, and when housing is infused with love, ceremony, and connection to land.
Their approach reminds us that prevention is not a checklist—it’s a way of being. It’s about walking together in a good way, holding one another up, and making sure no one is left behind.
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Watch the full Prevention Matters! conversation with NiGiNan Housing Ventures on the COH YouTube channel and stay tuned for future sessions highlighting Indigenous-led leadership in homelessness prevention.