Incite: Maggie Helwig on Encampment

Presented in partnership with Vancouver Public Library.

The housing crisis plaguing major urban centres across Canada has sent countless people into the streets. In spring 2022, some of them found their way to the yard beside the Anglican church in Toronto’s Kensington Market, where Maggie Helwig is the priest. They pitched tents, formed an encampment, and settled in. Known as an outspoken social justice activist, Helwig has spent the last three years getting to know the residents and fighting tooth and nail to allow them to stay.

Winner of the 2025 Toronto Book Award and one of CBC Books’ and the Globe and Mail’s best books of 2025, Encampment tells the story of Helwig’s life-long activism as preparation for her fight to keep her churchyard open to people needing a home. More importantly, it introduces us to the Artist, to Jeff, and to Robin: their lives, their challenges, their humanity. It confronts our society’s callousness in allowing so many to go unhoused and demands, by bringing their stories to the fore, that we begin to respond with compassion and grace.

Helwig shares her story and theirs, and answers audience questions, with The Tyee senior editor Jackie Wong, whose journalism on housing and drug policy has been published widely. Books will be for sale at the event by Upstart & Crow, with a signing afterwards.