Squat The City! How To Use The Arts For Housing Justice is an inspiring and practical resource for anyone anywhere 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 across Canada using music, theatre, comedy and poetry to address the issues.
His 18th book, but first work of non-fiction, it assembles his essays, articles, and extracts from his plays, albums, stories and Creative Resistance workshops, plus material from his legendary "community cabarets” seen by thousands throughout Quebec.
The Montreal Gazette calls him, "A fighter — invariably for the underdog . . . a Montreal legend"; while Montreal's 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.” The Vancouver Sun said his last book, a novella Vancouvered Out (2024), was, "In the honoured tradition of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London ... Highly recommended."
Nawrocki is a veteran community organizer who co-founded his non-profit, self-managed housing co-op and has been active in housing battles across Canada. He's also an internationally acclaimed violinist, playwright, actor and producer. He teaches part-time in the School of Community and Public Affairs 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 (People’s Rights Over Urban Development).