When Marcel LeBrun, CEO and co-founder of the company Radian6, sold his business to Salesforce in 2011, he began to pivot away from algorithms and toward altruism.
With a multi-million net worth — and a knack for problem-solving — combined with the housing crisis in North America, he committed to building 99 tiny homes to help house homeless residents of Fredericton, New Brunswick.
“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.”
Before coming up with the project that would ultimately become his nonprofit, 12 Neighbours, the tech tycoon traveled through the United States, Canada, and even Ghana, to see what other organizations were doing about homelessness and poverty — to see what was working.
As it turns out, tiny home communities — that give people vital resources while still respecting their dignity and autonomy — would be the way.
He decided to fund 99 of them, starting by sharing the stories of the first 12 neighbors.
A few years down the line, the village is in full swing, with over 100 240-square-foot homes available for people in need.
Compact but cozy, each home has a living room that doubles as a bedroom and comes with a fully-equipped kitchen and three-piece bathroom. The houses all have solar panels on their roofs and front porches where people can gather.
They all coalesce around a social enterprise center that houses a cafe, retail shops, workshops, and community gardens, which opened shortly after the last house was put into place.
“A lot of our systems provide support when someone showcases their deficits. Then, as they progress towards success, the supports fall away,” LeBrun said in an interview with the University of New Brunswick’s alumni magazine.
“In business as you succeed, investments increase. How can we structure things so people can unlock benefits as they succeed as opposed to having to showcase their deficits?”
The neighborhood sits on a 65-acre plot that was previously used for harvesting trees, on the north bank of the Saint John River. It’s near a major bus route, a handful of big-box stores, and adjacent to a wooded area with trails.
LeBrun took responsibility for most of the costs of building the neighborhood, with plenty of outside donations from area nonprofits and companies.
Even a church group offered up an 8,000-square-foot space, which would become the manufacturing warehouse that LeBrun filled with a team of workers who were all paid a living wage.
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.
“Marcel is literally a Godsend,” Marla Bruce, who lives in the second tiny home built in the neighborhood, told the alumni magazine.
“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.”
LeBrun himself is a bit more humble.
“Building community and being in community is inherently rewarding,” he told Green Matters.
“Getting to know so many amazing and resilient people, who have carried and overcome so much, who have incredible strengths, is rewarding. I don’t rescue or transform anybody. But we can create a community where transformation happens.”
Residents in the neighborhood range in age from 18 to 70 and often live alone. They are not required to be sober to live in the community, but 12 Neighbours does provide substance use counseling on-site.
“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.”
12 Neighbours residents also have access to on-site personal development groups that help them obtain GEDs or find work. A handful work at a nearby pop-up coffee shop, while others work in a printshop that creates merch for the nonprofit.
And LeBrun continues to lead the way, showing up to the property more days than not, and investing his time and money in ways he hopes will make a real difference.
“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.”
Header images courtesy of 12 Neighbours
