Aquinnah, the ancestral home of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, may become the host of the first native-run shelter in the state for indigenous women who are victims of domestic and sexual violence.
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission opened the hearing for Aquinnah Headwaters, a campus on 7.76 acres that would house a program to support indigenous women who have suffered from abuse. There will be continued hearing on the proposal next week, and the project needs further approvals from Aquinnah officials.
The campus is proposed by Northeast Native Network of Kinship and Healing, shortened to Kinship Heals, to be built on 759, 761, and 765 State Road in collaboration with West Tisbury architect firm South Mountain Co. Project plans include a 4,160-square-foot healing center, a 1,780-square-foot food hub, four one-bedroom solar-powered dwellings that are each 750 square feet, and 25 parking spaces. The proposal also includes a septic and drainage system, and a bus shelter is planned for the nearby State Road bus stop.
Kinship Heals is a native- and woman-run nonprofit that offers various services, including a food pantry, focused on helping members of the tribal community overcome trauma using Wampanoag and indigenous culture as the framework toward healing.
Aquinnah Headwaters would join only 55 other native-centered domestic violence shelters in the U.S., none of which are in Massachusetts, according to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. Currently, the nonprofit operates from rented office space on the Island.
So far, Kinship Heal has raised 11 percent of its $16 million goal, which cleared the fundraising threshold to purchase the land. Most of the project is on the Aquinnah coastal watershed, which drains to Vineyard Sound; a small portion is located in Squibnocket. Around a third of the site is open space, and nearly all of it will be protected. The site also contains wetlands and state-designated priority habitat, so the applicants plan to tailor the project to minimize the cutting of mature trees. Additionally, the project is not expected to have a negative impact on neighbors.
Matt Coffey, a South Mountain Co. architect, said the site is designed to work with the land and incorporate Wampanoag culture, including its orientation facing east toward the rising sun. Greeting the day and the rising sun is an important Wampanoag tradition, as the tribe’s name translates to “people of the first light.”
The project is planned to start construction in the winter of 2026 or 2027, pending permit approvals. Coffey said talks with Aquinnah town counsel are underway regarding the use of a portion of the space in connection with Wampanoag religious practices.
A part of the push for Aquinnah Headwaters came from the experience of Jen Randolph, executive director of Kinship Heals, and a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe. Randolph said she was in a violent relationship off-Island in her early twenties, and returned to the Vineyard in 2000.
“Being in my tribal community and engaging in my culture in spiritual practices that were traditional to our Wampanoag ways, that provided me a safe space to heal and grow,” Randolph said. Through this process, she met her current husband, also a member of the tribe, and they have three daughters together.
This effort is years in the making. Randolph said she was first contracted to do a community needs assessment to address domestic violence after the tribe received a grant in 2013 from the U.S. Department of Justice. At the time, the study showed that three out of five Wampanoag women will experience violence in their lifetime, which was on par with the national rate among indigenous women. That rate has since increased nationally to more than four in five today, according to the Indian Law Resource Center.
“One of the most impactful lessons that we’ve learned, and it has been validated through research, is that the most effective ways of healing and recovery are through our culture and spiritual practices,” Randolph said.
In 2014, the Wampanoag Women’s Center was opened, which became Kinship Heals in 2020. The current project site was purchased by Kinship Heals in 2023.
Randolph said that “this type of violence [was] not present in native culture prior to colonization,” highlighting that women used to “control the communal food systems, which reduced vulnerability and taught our traditional values around relationships.”
While the project is not run by the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe, the applicants noted the town is a region in which the tribe suffered “cultural and spiritual traumas from colonization and governmental intervention.” Still, it did receive a $250,000 grant from the tribe.
There were few concerns raised by commissioners on Thursday, like details over traffic and the landscaping. Doug Sederholm, West Tisbury commissioner, asked for input on security measures to keep residents safe.
“It might be the most important thing,” Sederholm said.
Coffey said a key fob would be required to enter a building unless buzzed in by a door attendant. He highlighted that there are very few entrances to buildings, and the loop driveway makes it so the property caretaker, who would live in one of the four units, can see when someone enters and leaves the property.
The only public concern came from abutter Tony Shaw, who lives west of the proposed property with his family. While in support of the proposal, he worried about decreased privacy from clear-cutting and activity. Coffey said the current iteration of Aquinnah Headwaters added 10 feet of buffer space, so there’d be 30 feet of vegetative screening between the properties.
The commission will return to the issue on July 23. Meanwhile, Kinship Heals plans to hold an information session about Aquinnah Headwaters on July 22 at Stillpoint in West Tisbury.
