Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities

“The word ‘philanthropy’ is often interpreted as someone who gives money,” he told the alumni magazine.

“But the Greek roots of the word ‘philos’ and ‘anthropos’ mean to love humans. What I have discovered is spending money is the easy thing, spending yourself is the hard thing. The 12 Neighbours project is how I can best spend myself.”yl

I'm not crying, you're crying... Sniff

This is fine, but millionaires won't save us

Elon Musk would never lol. He could do so much good with his money but he just chooses not to. Has he built a library? A park? A school? Literally anything?

Very smart to put solar panels on each unit. I hope the residents will be allowed to plant some flowers, bushes, and trees to brighten up the area.

Remember, theres a gigantic difference between the wealth of a billionaire and the wealth of a millionaire. For one thing, its possible to make a million without harming others, a BILLION though, you HAVE to sacrifice others to achieve.

Some rocker tried to do that in LA and they arrested him and kicked out all the homeless.

Why can't other people be more like this? Go Marcel!

When the time comes we let this one unbothered

“I won the parent lottery, the education lottery, the country lottery,” LeBrun told Macleans. “It would be arrogant to say every piece of my ‘success’ was earned, when so much of it was received.”

Looks like he did this because he’s actually a decent reasonable person.

Imagine if the public sector did this and didn't limit it to a single development.

We could even build bigger-than-tiny sized units. Maybe include additional amenities like schools and health clinics and food malls in the immediate vicinity. Throw in a rail stop so people can get to the metro center easily. You know... actual urban development.

No idea where we could get money for that, though. Maybe if Canada didn't exempt 50% of capital gains income from taxation for some reason... But no, that would never work.

This is how fucking easy it is. This is a millionaire. Imagine what someone with hundreds of billions of dollars could do.

Dude's getting 20k/mo rent and helping the poor. That's fucking awesome.

Based

Honestly when I see "tech millionaire" and "altruism" in the same article, I expect to seese seriously ghoulish shit.

I still have concerns around the long-term outcome - the land is ostensibly still privately held, and I assume the homes are as well. I'd like to

Rember kids; philanthropy is advantageous upon failure of collective efforts

Honestly when I see "tech millionaire" and "altruism" in the same article, I don't expect to see someone actually using their wealth to do something decent.

This is good, but if we address this at a systemic level, we don't need to put people in tiny low-density homes unconnected to anything for it to be affordable.

China addresses it by looking at how much labor and materials is required and ensuring the price of concrete, steel, glass, etc is sufficiently low for the number of homes they need constructed, and that there is enough of each type of skilled labor that goes into building a home.

Presumably local governments have some mechanism for when they know a house costs X materials and Y labor, and they see new construction costing significantly more than that.

The result is detached homes@avg 75USD/sqft and apartments@55/sqft. With current interest rates of 6.768%, you'd get ~400 sqft homes with a $200/mo 30 year mortgage at those prices, 600sqft if interest rates were 3%.

Rent pricing is what the people should target first. Hard to fight the nutjobs when rent is so expensive

As for the residents of the houses, rent is kept at 30% of income, which means the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities and internet — every month.

How are they planning to sustain this long-term?

Surely, someone is paying for the difference. Unless I totally missed it from the article 🫣

Impressive, it's even a walkable place seen that it is a mixed use neighborhood with commercial buildings too

When is that 30% determined? Sounds like this would be an inescapable situation. If they finally start making more, they're suddenly overpaying for this shit and can't save up anything to move somewhere better

I get that he enjoys staying involved with the project including providing/helping services for the community, but this probably doesn't need to use the "30% of income rent" crutch that is typical. Would be less time consuming to sell homes at cost, perhaps partner with bank to guarantee mortgages at low rates, let the community be a self managed HOA. Can make unlimited communities that way instead of tying up all your/his time into this one.

These units may be basically sheds, but I've seen people pay half a million to have the same thing three floors up in central London.

This is really great to see. So glad there are people like this out there willing to extend empathy to people who are struggling. I love that this project also respects their clients' autonomy as well. The fact that you don't have to stay sober to be there, I think it's great. Just give someone a stable roof over their head, a small support network, and I believe they can turn around their addictions and their lives.

My grandma lived in this trailer park for 40 years until she died. Pretty low overhead.

Are these houses good shelters for tornados?

They don't look like they would be. That alone kills the tiny house for a huge chunk of the US :/.

It's not scalable, but good on him

I’m just glad it’s housing for the unhoused. In general, we shouldn’t compromise for any less than a normal standard of living for all. But, in absence of that we can’t wait around while people freeze and OD on the streets. As long as this doesn’t become normalized and is simply a step forward. Which is a very serious concern. But, this is a solution in that it’s a 1 not a 0, which is often how things play out irl - messy, and lots of compromises.

Off topic, they look like detached homes. Was there a conscious choice not to make duplexes, quads, or an apartment building? Tiny homes are just so weird to me... People will really do anything except stick units next to each other