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.
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 that 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.
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 difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars
Some rocker tried to do that in LA and they arrested him and kicked out all the homeless.
Impressive, it’s even a walkable place seen that it is a mixed use neighborhood with commercial buildings too
Eat this guy last
He can sit on my side of the table if he keeps this up
“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.”
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
Rich assholes hoarding wealth instead of emulating this guy.
That’s not quite the same thing as it not being scalable
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.
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.
He twisted and parroted the words of someone else. Fucker’s absolutely incapable of original thought or actual creation
Something something he could’ve ended world hunger, but chose not to.
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 :/.
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.
If you build one big shelter for the neighbourhood its probably way more cost effective than per house.
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
Why can’t other people be more like this? Go Marcel!
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.
A million dollars ain’t what it used to be. Won’t even buy a house in many cities anymore.
A million will get you a home in just about any city. Whether it’s a really nice one or not is the question.
Rember kids; philanthropy is advantageous upon failure of collective efforts
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.
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.
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.
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.
they could move somewhere else where they wont be overpaying and let someone with less income move in. why inescapable?
A tiny house at 30% of income… yeah, real uplifting.
“A year ago, I was homeless. Now I have a home, I’m not on the street and I have peace because every place where I stayed before was temporary. Here there is very much a sense of community. Marcel has a heart and a passion for what he is doing.”
People got homes. Ones that dont require them to starve themselves to death.
Man, shut up. This dude made bank when he sold his company and thought, “how can I improve the lives of others with this money?”
Then he put in the work to figure out the best way to spend it. And then he fuckin did that.
Should the government be handling the problem? Yes. Is that how every rich person should think and act? For sure. But is that reality? No, so we should celebrate it when it happens.
You’ll never be happy if you let perfect be the enemy of good.
“You’ll never be happy if you let perfect be the enemy of good.”
what a great comment
I learned it watching a guy play Cities: Skylines and boy did it stick with me
Your comment made me think of The Office quote formatting of:
“You’ll never be happy if you let perfect be the enemy of good.” -Voltaire -Some guy playing CS
I had to think of who it was but it was City Planner Plays
30% of income spent on housing is a perfectly reasonable number
I think it maxes at $200
if it did, the text wouldnt be “the large majority” but “everyone”.
Perhaps that tiny fraction is paying more because they get more or really earn much more. Who knows. But this certainly is not something to criticize. Once 30 % of your income is way too much for such a house, you are far away from needing this kind of help and should move anyway.
its literally what financial advisers tell people should be the upper bound for their housing costs and this is for low income individuals. they didnt pull the number form their own rear. so take the small good news were you can.
