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.
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/
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”
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.
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
It’s nice not to have to listen to your neighbours through the walls
If you insulate against noise properly, you won’t.
Yeah, the airgap between units is the cheapest form of noise insulation
They’re easy to manufacture and move into place and remove if theres problems(pests, fire, etc). Depending on how he selects people a lot of the unhoused population are not mentally well and/or have substance abuse problems. This means if someone is a hoarder or sets their own place on fire it is not as consequential to their neighbors. It also is less likely to cause problems with neighbors if you have just a little bit of room. I would imagine for something like this to thrive you would want to build community and if people are annoyed with their neighbors because they are sharing a wall it would cause problems. I don’t know the real reason just throwing out ideas.
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
Someone must be cutting onions. Let’s add them to the billionaire stew.
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.”
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Rember kids; philanthropy is advantageous upon failure of collective efforts
This is how fucking easy it is. This is a millionaire. Imagine what someone with hundreds of billions of dollars could do.
Imagine what WE could do if we taxed millionaires and billionaires.
We could build these in every city in the country.
You can have a soul, or you can have billions of dollars; not both.
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
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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 from their own rear. so take the small good news were you can.
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
It’s the maximum reasonable amount as per StatsCan.
People spending 30% or more of their income on shelter costs are considered to be rent-burdened, or in unaffordable housing.
To me, “perfectly reasonable” implies that there would be wiggle room on either end where the figure could still be reasonable were it higher or lower.
It’s an arbitrary number, which means there is definitely wiggle room. People are surviving up at 60% (barely) so I think yes, these days 35% would also be considered reasonable by most
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.
“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.
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.
This is fine, but millionaires won’t save us
He did actually save those homeless people.
I don’t think it’s possible to amass “millions” as an executive, while giving fair payments to everyone down the chain.
Sure, but let’s pretend this one hasn’t done significantly more than others.
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.
Back during the gilded age and earlier it was common for wealthy individuals to found public services like hospitals and schools partly because these services were unlikely to exist without a wealthy benefactor to create them, so they’d found them with their own family and friends in mind first, but also as a hedge on helping improve their public image as the lack of any protections for the working class created literal battles between the working class and mercenaries hired by the owning class
Absolutely, but it is food seeing some people who actually use their money for something good.
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.
I really don’t like that you got downvoted so much for this. You are not wrong, that is the anti-taxer take, and your exposure to those who might not be aware contributes to the discussion in a meaningful way. I don’t know or care if you’re anti-tax I just know you brought up well thought-out points relevant to the conversation and I don’t like seeing the upside down vote count.
Thank you
I’m not anti tax. Just had to deal with somebody’s temper tantrum that school taxes are theft.
When I lived in germany full time, I would’ve loved to live in a tiny home, but germany would’ve rather put me on the street than allow a tiny home lmaoo.
That’s the problem in a lot of the US too. We transitioned from building massive subdivisions of small/cheap homes to smalle subdivisions of larger/more expensive housing. This is due to a mix of zoning that favors single family detached housing, land availability, and consumer tastes.
Homes have drastically grown in size over the past 200 years while the number of people living in them has decreased. Not to mention nicer material, which also contributes to cost. No more “builder grade” cabinets and formica counters these days.
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 🫣
You’re one of today’s lucky 10,000! Landlords typically charge even more than the cost of building and maintaining the house, and then just pocket the rest as profit. It’s bonkers!
It’s why the tech millionaire financing this isn’t a tech billionaire.
I get that he’s financing it, but that’s not sustainable if you want to implement something similar around the country.
I love the idea, and the tiny house village looks amazing! But if it relies on a millionaire to voluntarily subsidize the project, I can’t see it lasting too long.
Now, that brings us to a wonderful new option: tax the rich more than we do.
The top 5 billionaires could fund 1000s of these tiny home villages with just a fraction of a percent increase on their hoarded wealth.
I love the idea, and the tiny house village looks amazing! But if it relies on a millionaire to voluntarily subsidize the project, I can’t see it lasting too lang.
Which is why this needs to be a government task, and the rich shouldn’t be begged for voluntary charity, they should be taxed.
Public services don’t need to be profitable to be sustainable. You just need to tax base to be okay with it.
Yeah, I don’t want them to be profitable, but sustainable.
Even if taxpayers are paying for it, you can’t rely on the (struggling) general population to lift people out of homelessness. Let the rich carry that burden. They are the ones who’ve hoarded money that should have gone to everyone else.
hoarded money that should have gone to everyone else
That’s not how money works?
Yes, because hoarding billions means it was stolen from someone else. Either through low wages, low taxes, loopholes, or unethical business practices.
Nobody should ever be able to accumulate billions of dollars. We have people who will be trillionaires in our lifetime. Unjustifiable.
means it was stolen from someone else
No it isn’t? Usually it just means owning stock in a company, that others want to buy. That stock isn’t “stolen”, neither is the value that others assign to it.
Hell at the government level they can even just create money if needed. There’s a growing body of evidence that careful and measured “money printing” can actually be beneficial to an economy, and I suspect will become crucial to maintaining economies as populations decline and eventually stabilize
Sure it is. You have to have government fund it, like a normal social democracy would do.
like a normal social democracy would do.
Any examples?
Sweden had the Million Programme back in ~1960, which produced a significant amount of the housing people live in to this day. Just shitloads of commie blocks (and houses, actually) because they recognized that people needed a place to live.
You can find apartments in these buildings for $200 per month, they’ll be tiny but they’re fine. $600 is pretty standard and gets you something i’d almost consider luxurious for a single person.And these days there’s still a lot of subsidies going into housing, plus the fact that a lot of the apartment buildings are commissioned by municipal housing companies (i.e. owned by the municipality, and not operated for profit) or by what are effectively housing co-ops.
Look at riksbyggen for example, they’re kind of the bread and butter housing here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riksbyggen
He donated money to pay for the housing units, possibly the land. So that’s probably all paid off. There are still taxes and utilities to pay for, which is probably where the rent is going.
This is just an educated guess though.
These places are tiny at 240 square feet. There’s not going to be much $$ tied up in them for material and utility costs can’t possibly be that hught because the homes are so compact.
If each home cost $40k, which is probably generous, over 30 years that’s $111/mo. Internet is probably a commercial line to the site and then a local network type setup. The real question is how much the land cost.
Rent might not cover everything 100%, but it would be close. It wouldn’t surprise me if some money from the locality was involved since people living on the streets isn’t free and simply providing housing can be a massive first step to getting people reintegrated back into society.
Those houses don’t cost 40K. I’ve seen that kind of houses for 20K and less. Either in wood or sandwich panels.
I would estimate their construction cost is closer to $100k CAD than $40k. Maybe somewhere in the middle. Construction costs can be very high for a tiny home, which is what these are. They are built on a trailer.
That’s nuts from a construction cost per square foot perspective. In the US at least, you can buy a complete single wide and have it shipped to your location for well under $50k. Building them on site, on footings, seems like it would be even cheaper. I wonder where that cost came from.
If each home cost $40k
“Lowest cost for a Canadian tiny home: $80,000 to $150,000” (SOURCE)
Yes, probably less if they are building them all themselves, but $80,000 seems to be the norm for temporary tiny homes. Uxbridge priced tiny homes made from trailer containers at $80,000, too.
I think they could be sustainable as far as electricity (solar) and even water and heating (propane), so that’s not a bad thing.
But how is the land being paid for? Taxes? etc.
Every tiny home project I’ve heard about has these barriers that get in the way. What needs to change so we can build more of these, instead of single, detached homes with massive yards??
We need more of these!
I have done zero research, but that figure seems crazy. I could see it holding up if you were trying to build a single tiny home as each of the contractors will want to ensure a full day’s worth of income. However, if you’re build 100 units the piece cost should fall substantially. 240 square feet is truly tiny, so it should be pretty fast to assemble and wouldn’t take much raw materials. One other possibility for keeping costs down is volunteer labor, similar to habitat for humanity. That type of model won’t scale, but it can help keep prices low for a handful of jobs.
You would be surprised. There are a lot of fixed costs for building tiny homes, you have all of the appliances that need to be installed, trailer bed, plus framing, siding and roofing trades that need to happen.
Plus there is sitework, sewer, electrical water, and development fees.
Hopefully they got economies of scale to work here but they still can be a bit pricey.
There is no way you can’t cut that 80k number in half if you’re actually trying to build something with the goal of being affordable. Those are companies that are trying to make a manufactured home sound hot and trendy for profit, not an organization trying to make affordable housing.
Canada doesn’t have the single family zoning problem that is prevalent in the US. Lots of Canadians live in high rise apartments.
This is proby a smaller community though.
I contribute to the OpenStreetMap project, and there are a lot of detached homes here. Some areas have like 20 homes in a space that could house thousands of people. It’s pretty disgusting, actually.
We should be building up, and not contribute to sprawl.
But tiny homes are a great solution for keeping land space confined, while still offering functional homes in very little time.
Single family homes and their land should be smaller. How does two people in 2000+ square feet of house make any sense? I can tell you right now, in my ~1400 sq foot house with 2 kids and 2 adults we have two rooms that are largely unused, so I cant imagine the amount of waste in a larger house.
And the lawns! Ever since I measured some standard 1970s era suburbs and saw just how huge those expanses of grass that exist just for grass’s sake I can’t stop thinking about how rediculous many lot sizes are. 50 feet by 100 feet of grass. No flowers, no gardens. Just pure grass. There’s no reason for that much land to be wasted on fucking grass. And then you measure from front door to front door across the street and it’s over 150 feet! Because the road and sidewalks are about 60 feet wide for a road with 20 houses on it!
Damn, $200 sounds low, on the other hand 30% is a crazy share. I’m targeting 10-15% at most.
In fairness seems to also include all utilities (wonder if internet counts as a utility?)
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.
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? 😂
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
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.
