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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.
About Incite
Presented by the Vancouver Writers Fest and Vancouver Public Library, Incite is a free quarterly series offering fascinating conversations with celebrated authors and emerging talents. Incite is open to all, in-person at the VPL’s central branch or online. Books will be for sale at the event, and most events will have a signing after the talk. Can’t make the date? Sign up for the livestream to receive the recording in your inbox!
Participants and Speakers
Maggie Helwig
MAGGIE HELWIG (she/they) is a white settler in Tkaronto/Toronto, and is the author of fifteen books and chapbooks, including 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-in-the-Fields since 2013.
Jackie Wong
JACKIE WONG is a senior editor at The Tyee, an online news publication for B.C. She edits the Weekender, The Tyee’s weekend culture magazine. Jackie‘s journalism on housing and drug policy has been published widely, and in a life before The Tyee, she worked as a writing workshop facilitator in the Downtown Eastside and as an editor at Megaphone, a social enterprise creating meaningful work for those experiencing poverty.