Michael Shapcott

Michael Shapcott joined the staff of the Sorrento Centre in 2018. Ordained as a Deacon in the Anglican Church of Canada, Michael is well-known for a life-time of social and economic justice work focusing on housing and human rights. In his work, Michael has managed national youth employment programs for Prince's Charities Canada, the Canadian charitable office of HRH The Prince of Wales; led the housing and innovation practice at the Wellesley Institute think tank; co-ordinated community and university research partnerships for the University of Toronto's Centre for Urban and Community Studies; managed the development of hundreds of units of affordable housing through the innovative Rupert pilot project; and worked at street-level with adults who were homeless as a Community Development Worker at the Toronto Christian Resource Centre. Michael, who is pictured carrying a trowel on the day of his installation as Executive Director of the Sorrento Centre and the Sorrento Centre Farm, seeks to live deeply into the words of the 14th century English mystic Julian of Norwich: "Be a gardener, dig a ditch, toil and sweat, and turn the earth upside down and seek the deepness and water the plants in time. Continue this labour and make sweet goods to run and noble and abundant fruits to spring. Take this food and drink and carry it to God as your true worship." Michael lives on the campus of the Sorrento Centre with the delightful Phoebe, a young labradoodle. Michael knows how to play the accordion, and frequently does.