Bellevue Square Park (from Wikimedia Commons)
Kensington Market is a remarkable neighbourhood, diverse, creative, and inclusive, with a long history of connections to radical politics and art practices. It has long been the neighbourhood where new immigrant communities settle and build lives. But the community is also under threat from inappropriate development, and short-term rentals which are depriving the area of housing.

There are many social housing developments in the Market, whose residents are often food-insecure and depend on services from the church and community agencies. There are also an increasingly large number of community members who are homeless, and who live on the streets and in alleyways, or in encampments in Bellevue Square Park, Sonja’s Park, Doctor’s Parkette, and the yard of St Stephen’s itself. Many of these people have extreme and complex health needs, partly due to the trauma of long-term homelessness.

We have long-standing relationships with Friends of Kensington Market, a grassroots neighbourhood organization working to protect and promote the character of Kensington, and with the Kensington Market Community Land Trust, of which Mother Maggie was a founding member. We also work closely with The Neighbourhood Group (formerly St Stephen’s Community House, founded by an earlier rector, the Reverend Cam Russell).