ENCAMPMENT

An activist priest provides sanctuary for an encampment of unhoused people in her churchyard.

We think, maybe, that homelessness is some kind of stable state, like being housed except without housing. Without really considering it, most people imagine that people who are homeless live in, if not one place, at least in one condition, that their days are in some way predictable. But homelessness is, more than anything else, a life of constant displacement.

The housing crisis plaguing major urban centers has sent countless people into the streets. In spring 2022, some of them found their way to the yard beside the Anglican church 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, battling various authorities that want to clear the yard, and prefer to keep the results of the housing crisis out of sight and out of mind.

Encampment tells the story of Helwig's lifelong 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 it demands, by bringing their stories to the fore, that we begin to respond with compassion and grace.

MAGGIE HELWIG (she/they) is a white settler in Tkaronto/Toronto, and is the author of fifteen books and chapbooks, most recently Girls Fall Down (Coach House, 2008), which was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award, and was chosen as the One Book Toronto in 2012. Helwig is a long-time social justice activist, and also an Anglican priest, and has been the rector of the Church of St. Stephen-inthe-Fields since 2012.