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
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
Marcel LeBrun made millions as a software executive. But then, he devoted his fortune to affordable housing.
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.
That may be fine at first, but the price of those houses will skyrocket every time they're sold until they reach the current market prices again. By only renting them, he can ensure the price stays artificially low.
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.
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%.
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.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars
While the guy happened to manage to acquire almost $400 million by selling his company, it seems that he's really trying to do some good with that, quite frankly, ridiculous amount of money.
Also it seems that his employees were compensated somewhat above market rate while he owned the company.
Not exactly a dragon of his own making, we shall observe his career with great interest to see if he follows what seems to be his chosen path, as of now.
“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
I also liked this:
“We have people who have been run over by trauma, by substance abuse, by all of these things,” LeBrun told Macleans. “It’s about excavating that person, buried under their circumstances, little by little.”
Seems like a decent dude.
I like this part as well:
“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.”
Some rocker tried to do that in LA and they arrested him and kicked out all the homeless.
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?
Didn't you know empathy is a sin and weakness.....
Can't believe he said that shit.
Something something he could've ended world hunger, but chose not to.
He twisted and parroted the words of someone else. Fucker's absolutely incapable of original thought or actual creation
He's a billionaire. Id be surprised if he said otherwise.
If he said that, he needs to be ground into a fine paste, eaten, and then shit out because that's some garbage-tier humaning.
Eat this guy last
He can sit on my side of the table if he keeps this up
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.
This is in my town. They are allowed and encouraged to do so. Their place is THEIR place, it fosters a sense of community and ownership of the community.
This project really kicks ass and it's making waves. I know the guy is a millionaire, but I've listened to a few interviews and his heart is at the right place. He genuinely cares and is being pragmatic about it.
I wish I could say the same for the billionaires of this province. Looking at you, Irving shitbags.
It's actually not as crazy being a tech millionaire nowadays since so many people build a great service and then just have it bought up by the competition.
It said right in the article Salesforce bought his product in 2011 and thats what made him a millionaire. Pretty good way to use that life changing money for the better of others and not just himself.
Impressive, it's even a walkable place seen that it is a mixed use neighborhood with commercial buildings too
Why can't other people be more like this? Go Marcel!
This is fine, but millionaires won't save us
This could be pointed to as a successful test case to get the gov off it's ass and implement this at a macro level.
You are correct millionaires will not save us, however we should reward behavior we want to see. Lest we get more billionaires who are a net drag on society.
How though. Anti taxers would point out that it should be an 8 story concrete apartment building for maximum return of government investment, but no increase in taxes, any concerned official is left fighting politically for leftover funds to slowly build up in an account to initiate the project, and then they loose an election and the next guy uses it on fancy jewlery for his mistress.
Even just getting one building off the ground and they’ll be eviscerated for not using economies of scale. Building ten at the same time and a slight cost overrun which always happens is multiplied by ten.
Sorry for my pessimistic rant.
Sure, but let's pretend this one hasn't done significantly more than others.
He did actually save those homeless people.
Absolutely, but it is food seeing some people who actually use their money for something good.
They could, but they won't.
Maybe if they all teamed up and were organized to do so. But a tiny handful of billionaires control as much wealth as the millionaires. It's much harder for a class to voluntarily do good than for a small handful of people. That's why society needs to step in, tax them, and distribute to projects as needed.
Rember kids; philanthropy is advantageous upon failure of collective efforts
It's not scalable, but good on him
Why not?
I mean.. we can't rely on rich people funding our housing
But also the way it's built. They're all small, single story homes. It's great for starting an independent community like he did, but most people want to live in cities, and this would never work in a city
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 :/.
You can have community tornado shelters.
I know they do that in trailer parks, but you still have to make it to the shelter. And there are a lot of people who would prefer to gamble than do that. Trailers at least have heft to them, and multiple walls to catch flying debris. You can duck into a bathroom for instance if things get real bad real quick.
Edit: but I clearly haven't thought this out as the people would otherwise be homeless and have 0 shelter
Generally this can be solved with hurricane ties (to prevent the structure from completely flying) and a community tornado shelter in affected regions. It won't eliminate damage but will reduce it as much as can be.
It’s in Canada.
Alberta and Saskatchewan do have some tornado risks, but it's not nearly as bad as central US.
If you build one big shelter for the neighbourhood its probably way more cost effective than per house.
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
There's a cap of $200.
And places like this should have income caps, after which you need to move out. A good practice is a system where income has to be under one cap to move in and have to leave after making a different, higher cap. It lets people get a foothold and establish some savings to prepare to support themselves.
Affordable is awesome. If it helps people who can only afford affordable, awesome. But this could be organized more decentrally to help everyone that wants affordable. It would be a disadvantage in "buying" a home, if your efforts to improve your income backfire/kick you out of your home.
You'd need to make $2000/month for a cheap apartment (~$600/month) to be cheaper than this. And if you are, just move there.
Anyways, this is irrelevant; Marcel implemented a rent cap much before that.
they could move somewhere else where they wont be overpaying and let someone with less income move in. why inescapable?
You tend to need a deposit to move into a new place. Which requires savings. It's hard to save when the biggest expense you have keeps going up in direct proportion with the money you make...
Why is this so hard to grasp?
Yes, apparently there's a cap, but if there hasn't been, it sounds like one of those surface level nice things that is actually exploitative
Currently a little over 50% of my income goes to rent+utilities, then there's still food+transport to deal with. I'd gladly take 30% as it would actually give me some room to save instead of living paycheque to paycheque.
If my income were to improve where 30% is unreasonable, I'd just move back to flat-rate renting as I am now.
When you earn so much that these 30 % are more than usual rent, you are far from being homeless very quickly. Not to mention the 300 $ cap.
There's max at $200. I guess it's enough to keep it running and maintained.