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“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.
I accept millionaires.
I've yet to see moral 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$.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Based
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…?
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/
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.
Millionaires still have their humanity on occasion.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Public services don't need to be profitable to be sustainable. You just need to tax base to be okay with it.
Sure it is. You have to have government fund it, like a normal social democracy would do.
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.
My grandma lived in this trailer park for 40 years until she died. Pretty low overhead.
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.
Wait what? Your rent is 10-15% of your income? What's that like in absolute numbers?