Norman Nawrocki launches
new non-fiction book

A collection of essays, articles and excerpts from his novels and plays to inspire activists

By Irwin Rapoport

May 1, 2025

Acclaimed Montreal author, playwright, and musician Norman Nawrocki is a long-time tenant and housing rights activist. On May 15, he is launching his new and timely book Squat The City! How to Use the Arts for Housing Justice at the Bar Milton Parc Coop, 3417 Parc Avenue, from 5 to 7 pm. The multi-media launch is free. Watch the book trailer.

Squat The City! How to Use the Arts for Housing Justice, published by Kersplebedeb Books, is an inspiring and practical resource for “anyone curious about how the arts can help navigate the current housing crisis. It’s full of lessons, strategies and examples based on Nawrocki’s decades of ongoing work as an activist/artist/organizer and educator, using music, theatre, comedy and poetry to address the issues.”

Norman Nawrocki

Nawrocki’s first work of non-fiction is a collection of his essays, articles, and extracts from his plays, albums, stories and Creative Resistance workshops, plus material from his band’s legendary hilarious “community cabarets” seen by thousands across Quebec.

The Gazette describes Nawrocki as “a fighter, invariably for the underdog… a Montreal legend,” while Le Devoir says, “Anyone who knows Norman Nawrocki knows that he’s on fire when it’s time to talk about social causes close to his heart.”

Nawrocki is a veteran community organizer who co-founded his non-profit housing coop in Milton-Parc, was arrested during the historic fight to save Overdale, and has been active in housing battles across Canada. He’s also an internationally acclaimed violinist, actor and producer. He teaches part-time in the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University.

Nawrocki, who has been featured in several Westmount Magazine articles, replied to a few questions.

WM: Why did you write this book?

Nawrocki: I wrote this book to share my over forty years of experience in Canada as an artist/community organizer and educator with whoever may be interested in the potential for the arts to help develop the growing tenants’ rights and housing justice movement. To invite anyone anywhere to realize the value and the potential of adopting an arts-based approach to fighting for housing rights.

In the current untenable housing crisis across North America and beyond — a phenomenon integral to capitalism that produced it — we are seeing a proliferation of tenants’ rights groups and more calls for direct action, ideas, solutions and practices. Rent strikes and physically resisting evictions are resurfacing again as viable, legitimate strategies of opposition. Housing justice campaigns are not new, but now more poor tenants than ever before are confronted with a vicious housing market driven by the tourism industry, greed and the pursuit of profit at their expense. My book provides an additional resource to help defend the rights of poor tenants. In my book, I insist that the arts – all the arts– have a critical and much-needed role to play in the fight for a roof over everyone’s head. I show how to do this more effectively using creative approaches.

For years, I have wanted to collect my diverse non-fiction writings about creative approaches to housing justice into one volume. This introductory collection is based on my community and performance-driven activist art practices and my reflections, discussions and years of research. I am hoping that it will contribute to and broaden the dialogue about “what to do?” As the fight for housing rights expands, so does the need for new, innovative and experimental approaches and campaigns. Meanwhile, I believe that Squat the City! is also useful for anyone involved in any other social justice movement. The lessons, strategies and techniques are equally applicable.

“For those of us involved in activism and housing, this book inspires and points to how to build a movement integrating the arts as a means to build power!”

— Eric Shragge, co-editor, Montreal: A Citizen’s Guide to City Politics

WM: Who is this book for?

Nawrocki: It’s for anyone, anywhere, who is curious about exploring the relationship between the arts and the housing and tenants’ rights movement and how the ideas and practice of each can enrich and help inspire the other.

It’s for artists from any discipline who want to contribute to the movement and possibly collaborate with community groups. For community organizers and activists equally curious about exploring what an arts-based approach in their work might entail, how it could help. It’s also for supporters who, for whatever reason, can’t actively participate in housing or tenants’ rights campaigns but would like to offer assistance from the sidelines in the form of resources, meeting space, equipment, technical know-how, etc.

Just as importantly, my book will also be useful for people who aren’t directly involved in the housing justice movement, but are active in other social justice movements such as the climate crisis, anti-war, workplace organizing, human rights work, etc. Many of the techniques, concepts, examples, suggestions and lessons can be reframed to address other issues. It’s what we call the magical power of the arts harnessed to promote social justice issues. It can work in diverse situations for a multitude of causes. Demonstrate its effectiveness to reach more people regardless of the issue. My book provides a coherent argument in favour of an arts-based response to general social injustice.

WM: What is this book all about?

Nawrocki: It’s about the power and magic of the arts to bring people together, inspire them and share messages of hope and human rights. It’s about what I learned during my forty years and counting career as an activist artist/community organizer/educator working with community groups on the frontlines of the housing justice movement.

The book shows how we used music, theatre, comedy, poetry, circus arts, puppetry, visual art and more to address serious issues and reach more people with our messages. It describes, for example, how one of my bands, Rhythm Activism, wrote, mounted, and toured “community cabarets” across Quebec about tenants’ rights, reaching thousands of people. How we worked with tenants to compose their songs, poems and theatrical sketches. About how Montreal poets supported a tenants’ union (SLAM-MATU) and showed the critical role that poetry can play to draw people together and share ideas, emotions and visions for housing justice.

Though most of the examples are based in Montreal, the lessons learned can be applied anywhere people are engaged in similar battles.

Overdale concert

WM: What will people learn from reading your book?

Nawrocki: The arts can contribute to building a strong and dynamic housing justice movement. That artists from all disciplines have a role to play in this fight. That community groups can benefit from collaborating with artists, and that anyone from the general population can join in the fun.

They will learn about my creative process and how any socially conscious artist can collaborate with others. About how a band collaborated with a community group to produce an entire show based on songs and chants normally used in the street.

About how artists transformed a huge building wall into a powerful work of anti-gentrification art. About how a balcony protest concert led to a housing victory.

They will read hilarious extracts from our community cabarets that used humour to convey vital messages. And testimonials from community group members who never realized that using the arts for a political purpose could be both rewarding and fun.

WM: What qualifies you to write this book?

Nawrocki: My lifelong passion for the arts, community organizing, and bridging the two worlds as best I can. I started as a young violinist in Vancouver, resisting music lessons at first. My community organizing started after high school when I became active in neighbourhood groups fighting for parks and resisting “blockbusting” by developers to save local affordable housing. We did our best to be innovative and creative in our protests, but were limited by our inexperience.

After I moved to Montreal and my music career started, I then evolved into theatrical productions with more creative writing and collaborating with other artists, I realized that, with my ongoing community organizing, twinning the two practices was becoming my life’s work. Then my bands and I started collaborating with community groups like FRAPRU. I was giving workshops to community groups in English and French based on my experience and further research about the arts and community organizing. This led to teaching a graduate class at Concordia University.

“On many occasions, Nawrocki put his talents to work for FRAPRU and the struggles for the right to housing. Thank you for reminding us of all this in this book.”

— François Saillant, author of Lutter pour un toit (Fight for a Roof), former coordinator of FRAPRU

WM: What is your follow-up to this book?

Nawrocki: Giving more housing and arts workshops across the country. There are several housing rights songs that I recorded in the past, like the Condo Vampire, a catchy little tango, which I hope to re-release. I’m also hoping to have the book translated into French. Later, there will be a forthcoming book about my more general Creative Resistance practice, a bigger volume. At the book launches, I will be screening short videos about some of the theatre, cabaret and music productions discussed in the book, then turning them into a short film.

Feature image: courtesy of Norman Nawrocki