“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.
This is how fucking easy it is. This is a millionaire. Imagine what someone with hundreds of billions of dollars could do.
You can have a soul, or you can have billions of dollars; not both.
Imagine what WE could do if we taxed millionaires and billionaires.
We could build these in every city in the country.
I accept millionaires.
I’ve yet to see moral billionaires.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars. Although the millionaires have to stop clutching their pearls, step up and realize that they’re a lot closer in class to the homeless than the billionaires.
Yep, I’ve seen friends reach the seven figure area through steady seven day weeks and some luck picking their trade and finding industrial clients over a period of fifteen to twenty years. I have seen how little they slept and how kids were basically only possible because they were pretty self reliant from age 12 or 13 and helped a lot around the house. I have no idea how a human could possibly create a thousand times that value in their lifetime.
They can’t. Billionaires can only exist by taking value generated by others. Absolutely nothing Jeff Bezos could do within 60 seconds is worth continuously “earning” over 18.000$.
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Well you sure as hell can’t have generally high moral standards and earn a billion from scratch. You have to either screw the environment on a very large scale and/or screw lots and lots of people.
And if you are in a context where you inherit a billion and think there is no problem with an individual having billions, odds are you are also not in a great position moral-wise.
I think the main ethical pathway to billions is through intellectual property. Write a beloved book series where each installment sells over 10 million copies, gets adapted into a movie cinematic universe that grosses billions, sells a shitload of merchandise, etc., and taking a fair cut of all that economic activity might result in a billion dollars.
Yes, in a sense it’s still rent seeking of being paid some kind of toll for someone else building on your work, but that foundation is still your own work.
On a smaller scale, you’ve got songwriters, filmmakers, other entertainers, who can do one thing that gets seen/appreciated by billions. Same with inventors or artists.
fair point, for creative stuff whether or not its worth is really billions is another discussion which might touch ethics but is not always an obv violation.
It can really be a grey zone though since some inventions could really improve humanity as a whole (such as those in medicine) but when capitalised becomes accessible only by a certain class and makes the inventor possibly a billionaire. Now if you categorize earning billions from this as non-ethical but earning billions from other creative processes as ethical this will likely create a loophole. So I am still in favor of putting these in the same bag.
Most millionaires probably don’t even know it and certainly don’t feel it. It’s old people who’ve been living in the same house for 50 years, who still worry about the price of beans.
Dude’s getting 20k/mo rent and helping the poor. That’s fucking awesome.
Considering utilities are included, I doubt he gets much of that
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.
If I was homeless I’d take solid four walls the size of a medium-sized tent if it meant warmth, utility services, your own toilet and anything else I’d need to even be able to focus on caring for myself or even others more than merely survive. Those tiny buildings might be the minimum, but they ARE something you can call a safe home.
I’m wondering though, how was this more cost-effective to build than a long apartment complex…? Do those tiny things not need any concrete foundation, perhaps regulatory stuff…?
Looking at the video, they’re basically trailers. How much does it take to set up a trailer park? Fill a base with concrete, slap in some plumbing and electrical points. Probably quite economical to do it all in one go.
I suspect the most expensive part is the land in most places. Looks like this town has plenty of room around it. Probably costs a bit to heat them though, being where it is.
And I got to be honest, a small separate home looks a lot nicer to live in than an apartment building. Especially if it’s built from wood like these are. Being able to hear constant noise from 10 other people around you just walking about is not for me.
There are ways to build apartment complexes rather sound-proof, however probably not as economically. Just hope the long-term costs of these tiny houses won’t eat up any savings; at least in terms of energy everyone got solar panels, that should offset the probably rather weak insulation.
When the time comes we let this one unbothered
I applaud the project but I’d still eat him. He is a near billionaire CEO throwing a few scraps to us commoners. Maybe his PR team can make me look good too as I go for seconds.
He gets a pass in my book. Maybe he did it because he wanted to be spared in the future.
We can pretend to eat him while we distribute his wealth.
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.
Based
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.
My city built a bunch of these, but they are 10 ft x 10 ft pods. Hundreds of them. We still have 5-6,000 homeless living on the street. Our county has been handing out free tents for 8 years and guess what, didn’t help.
Feels like now is the best time for other nations to have low capital gains taxes. No?
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
It said former, he sold his business 14 years ago and looks like he doesn’t work in tech anymore.
Did you forget to finish that last sentence before you hit post ?
Worst case the business will forcibly close due to lack of rent payments, though, right?
Or he is doing millionaire thing and looking for new kidney.
As long as he pays, capitalism lives on
Rent pricing is what the people should target first. Hard to fight the nutjobs when rent is so expensive
Simply approving more housing helps too https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/
Building more housing helps, but building new housing will remain expensive for as long as land is expensive, so it’s vital that we avoid wasting land. Which means density.
Some people read “density” and think “ah, taller buildings!”, but that’s only half the picture - you can save tremendous amounts of space by improving horizontal density - look at how dense OP’s one storey housing is, by shrinking the houses, and by ditching the front yard and dedicated sidewalks.
Except, most of the space is still empty! Those streets are oversized (take a look at traditional cities, most streets are under 20ft wide (6m wide) wall-to-wall), and the houses all have gaps next to them which look big enough to fit (or almost fit) another house. So you could easily more-than-double the density without even going up, assuming the housing isn’t car-centric (I’m guessing those empty spots might be car parks, and the streets are overly wide because they’re for cars).
If this sounds nitpicky, it’s not: building one-storey houses is dirt cheap; imagine trying to make a portable two-storey tent. It even makes it realistically possible to remove developers from the equation, without too much going horribly wrong. It just needs to be efficient with the land it uses.
240sqft = 22.3sqm
look at how dense OP’s one storey housing is, by shrinking the houses, and by ditching the front yard and dedicated sidewalks.
What the actual fuck are these suggestions. This sounds a lot like the conservative members of my area that argue homeless people don’t deserve anything. They want to cram the all into one building with no privacy, get rid of sidewalks and green spaces because people loiter, and generally make life as uncomfortable as possible for the destitute instead of treating them like normal human beings.
For reference, your standard wheelchair accessible hotel room will not be less than 20sqm.
approving more housing is like realizing that hey maybe i should stop actively hammering the splinter into my toe!
i mean yeah, you should do that, but if that’s the point we’re at maybe it’s time to start screaming about it rather than going “man this situation is suboptimal”
Damn, $200 sounds low, on the other hand 30% is a crazy share. I’m targeting 10-15% at most.
German here, 30% of income after taxes was the rule since a few decades, but in reality many people are closer to 50% now. How do you manage 15%?
EDIT: Oh, right, just saw the 8k income. That’s C-Level money here.
I am C-level and also German.
It’s a lot but certainly nowhere near C-level.
High risk, high reward I guess. Less social security, more immediate gain.
You misunderstand me, I’m German myself. That’s nowhere near C-level, at least not in the bigger corporations. 8k a month is not even 100k a year. Engineers can earn that.
8k after taxes? That’s like 16k before.
I was thinking before actually. There’s our misunderstanding. Never mind.
Wait what? Your rent is 10-15% of your income? What’s that like in absolute numbers?
Closer to 9% right now, 700 USD vs. 8k income after tax. But I generally don’t spend more than 1k regardless, it’s a hard limit for me.
The thought of 700USD for housing just gave me a boner
Do you work remotely? I’m finding it hard to imagine a high salary in a very low rent area.
Where I live, 8000 net would be 150k a year. That’s a high salary around here and rent is not less than 2k a month for a basic apartment for one.
Yes I do, but my office is pretty much exactly 40 miles from where I live, so I could technically commute if I had to. Takes me about 45 min to get there on a good day, with traffic can be 1:15h.
You have a pretty good deal! Do you live in a swamp or something? 😂
Nope, capital city of my State, in a recently built gated community (2018). Corner lot with nice garden and 2400ft², 4BR. 😎
Amazing. Nice one on finding the dream!
In France the law does not allow rent (or mortgage) payments higher than 1/3 of net monthly income.
It is pretty effective at keeping the housing market vaguely in check.
Fell apart after COVID when a bunch of Parisians sold their little apartments and arrived in the provinces with a million in their pocket. The law has kept it level after that big jump though I think.
30% is a good target for keeping things balanced because theoretically youd spend 30% on housing, 30% on food and necessities and 15% for savings and 15% for fun stuff. But reality is for most people the required costs are much higher so you end up with most income going to housing and transportation
In fairness seems to also include all utilities (wonder if internet counts as a utility?)
If it was possible to build co-ops of these it’d be what I’ve been suggesting for like 9 years.
Look up “housing cooperative” in your area, there might actually be one, as there’s a pretty substantial number of them scattered across many locations. My area has at least 10.
I have and there aren’t any. Regardless they should be the standard, not the exception.
My grandma lived in this trailer park for 40 years until she died. Pretty low overhead.
“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.”
Someone must be cutting onions. Let’s add them to the billionaire stew.
