“Encampments are a last resort, but everyone deserves housing”: This priest cared for her unhoused neighbours. Then the city made them leave

Maggie Helwig isn’t your typical white-collar priest: she famously sports scuffed leather boots with her robes and has a penchant for bravely weathering Toronto’s streets and ravines on her bike. In 2022, the author, activist and long-time rector of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Anglican Church in Kensington Market opened her churchyard as an encampment to unhoused residents.

Helwig’s encampment was home to roughly 25 people at its peak but decreased in capacity to about 12 when the city erected a fence on the southern side of its lawn in 2023. Over three years, the encampment’s community ranged from teens to seniors—a few of whom lived there from the beginning, attending the church’s three meals a week. Throughout the encampment’s existence, the city repeatedly threatened to shut it down.

The story of Helwig’s work in the encampment and her relationships with its residents became the subject of her first non-fiction book, Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community, which won the City of Toronto and Toronto Public Library‘s 2025 Toronto Book Award on October 15. Less than 24 hours later, the city forcibly evicted the encampment residents and cleared the site, claiming it posed a fire hazard. Here, Helwig reflects on the ironic timing of the award and how she believes compassion and honesty are needed to find a solution to Toronto’s housing crisis.

Congratulations on your recent award. What does the win mean to you in light of the clearing that immediately followed? It’s a bitter irony. I’m not so interested in my own feelings—this tragedy belongs to the evicted residents—but I am angry on their behalf and deeply worried for them. The excavation was not only shockingly rapid but traumatic for everyone. We had little warning. Early in the week, the fire marshal issued us a notice that the encampment would be cleared in less than 48 hours. I immediately filed a request for review to freeze the clearing, but it was addressed only after the encampment was cleared—far too late to change anything. Beyond that, I couldn’t intervene. I would have stood by the residents if they had tried to stay, but they said they had no choice and feared they’d be arrested if they didn’t leave.

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In my book, I’m critical of all three levels of government, because the housing crisis has been decades in the making: first the federal government abandoned any notion of a national housing strategy, and then the province offloaded social services to underfunded municipalities that couldn’t handle them.

Early in the book, you write that there’s a “great gulf” between those who have lived in encampments and those who haven’t. Does being a priest help you bridge that gap? There’s nothing magical about being a priest that enables me to talk to unhoused people like they’re human beings. I was doing so in Toronto in the ’80s, and I volunteered with groups supporting them in the early 2000s, long before I was a priest. Talking to other people as equals is something everybody should be able to do.

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The “great gulf” in that quote is multi-layered. In the Bible, there’s a parable about a rich man who for years walks by Lazarus, a poor man covered in sores begging for scraps. After death, the rich man goes to hell—which I’m not totally comfortable with—and Lazarus gets carried away to be with Abraham. The rich man begs Abraham to ask Lazarus to warn his family against behaving selfishly. But Abraham refuses, saying, “Between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed.” Another layer is that one of the luxury condo developers I often see around town is named Great Gulf. It’s a bizarre irony that they heard that phrase and never thought to look it up.

Were the city’s concerns about fire on the property valid? It was a real issue. We’ve had small fires before, but none where anyone had been seriously injured. It’s possible that the clearing was expedited because of political pressure. Our councillor, Diane Saxe, has been outspoken in her distaste for encampments. But I can’t prove anything. A member of the fire department also said that some of the urgency was due to worry from the neighbours. What I can say is that there was plenty of room to talk about fire mitigation, such as rearranging the tents to safer places on the plot or avoiding flammable materials in their set-up.

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I was reminded recently of the Grant Faulkner Inquest. In 2015, a homeless man named Grant Faulkner burned to death in his tent in Scarborough. The inquest from Toronto’s coroner’s office produced a list of recommendations for fire safety in encampments, and yet many of them, like providing fire-resistant blankets and safe heating sources, have never been implemented. It really deserves more attention. In the past, we’ve attempted mitigation strategies of our own at the church, such as refilling hot water bottles consistently and giving out fire extinguishers, though the latter are always confiscated by the city.

Where are the former encampment residents now? About six of the 12 residents accepted rooms in shelter hotels—some of which are far from Kensington Market. Less than two days after the clearing, two people were already in the hospital. One of them, who was particularly distraught after the clearing, fell and hit their head. The other missed several days of wound care with our outreach worker. We were working with Streets to Home on permanent housing possibilities for some of the residents, but because they’ve dispersed and likely landed outside of the catchment area, those placements may be in jeopardy now.

Over the past decade, housing activism has become your calling card. What draws you to it? I can relate to the people who come to our churchyard. I’ve had my own struggles with mental health, and I was viciously bullied throughout my academic career. I’m no more vulnerable than many people, but I am more willing to own that I don’t perfectly fit into the world of normalcy.

I also have a daughter with autism. When we walk around in public, I see people give her a stink eye. These things give me at least some idea of what it feels like to be stereotyped—to have people give you dirty looks for existing in a way that they don’t like. That’s the daily experience of being homeless.

I agree that we owe our neighbours care, but how do you respond to claims that encampments can lead to safety issues like open drug use and violence? Drug use happens everywhere, and Kensington Market especially is no stranger to it. The difference when people are unhoused is that they have no privacy, which is aggravated by the closure of safe consumption sites. There’s never been a real study proving that encampments bring additional crime and drug use beyond what was happening already. Encampments soak up the blame for any other crime that happens in the vicinity.

I don’t disagree that petty crime and disorder may be increasing, but these aren’t because of encampments. Rather, crime and encampments are different symptoms of general social disintegration. Most people who live in encampments want to live quietly and safely and are doing the best they can in a terrible situation. I’m not suggesting that living in an encampment is even close to a good way to live. Encampments are a last resort. They’re a symptom of total social system failure—but everyone deserves housing.

One of the other gripes about encampments is that they render shared public space unusable to others. Do you have a take on that? Competing uses of green space and environmentally sensitive areas are issues—no doubt about that. With our churchyard, it’s different, because it hasn’t been used by the public, so it’s not like the residents are encroaching on a park. As far as public spaces are concerned, I often ask why we can’t try talking to one another about what places might be more appropriate for tents. Negotiation is easier than we think. We’re all human beings living in a very difficult time in history. I’ve seen many people in the neighbourhood make friends with residents of the encampment. They come by with food, clothing or just to chat. I’d like to see more of that. For anyone who feels uncomfortable with doing that on their own, there are local drop-in programs that need volunteers, and they’re a good way for people to learn from community organizers who have years of experience. I know my church’s doors are certainly open to volunteers.

But, if someone doesn’t have appropriate housing, we can’t just turn a blind eye and hope they disappear. If we get into the business of disappearing human beings, we’re heading toward a very bad place. I’ve heard a lot more people making the case for involuntary institutionalization recently, which as far as I’m concerned is incarceration for those who fall outside of social norms. And involuntary treatment has a notoriously poor success rate.

Lockdowns and social distancing measures were a huge disruption across Toronto’s shelters. What kinds of aftershocks from the pandemic are you seeing now? The pandemic exacerbated decades of poor housing policy decisions that were already brewing—but it also shifted the public’s attitude. Instead of realizing how interdependent we are, many people came away from the experience of communal fear convinced that they owe their neighbours nothing. I see a lot of people thinking that care is an unbearable imposition on their so-called freedom. People confuse what’s uncomfortable with what’s dangerous. Personally, I find rooms full of well-dressed middle class people to be extremely uncomfortable, but I have to remind myself I’m not in danger.

Is there one thing that you’d ask for from City of Toronto’s leaders? Honesty. The city knows very well that unhoused people will simply move to another park or spend a short time in a shelter hotel room after being evicted from an encampment, yet the city’s policy is still to clear them out. I’d like them to own up to that being a poor practice. Olivia Chow has admitted that Toronto can’t provide better housing because it can’t run a budget deficit, and she’s already created more housing for Toronto than the provincial and federal governments. She deserves praise there. But the city needs to be more vocal about the funding and support it needs, and I’d like to see an end to encampment clearings altogether.

I’d also like to see city staffers stop suggesting that unhoused people in encampments are there because they’re irresponsible. They know that’s not the case. It’s due to a worldwide trend toward greater and greater economic disparity, which results in desperation. But, ultimately, elected politicians appeal to the people who vote for them, and that’s not unhoused people.

Your work has you doing a whole lot of caring for others. How do you take care of yourself? I have a really good community around me, and that includes the homeless and marginalized people in the neighbourhood. I had a terrible day when the city cleared the encampment. But I just went down to the stoop at 54 and 56 Kensington, where the old punks hang out. Everybody hugged me, and we sat for a while. The neighbourhood doesn’t only need me—I need it too.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.