As a recently retired businessman, Marcel LeBrun sought to use his time and talents to make a difference in his community. His decision? Build a tiny house community of 99 homes for unhoused people living in his hometown of Fredericton, N.B., and throughout the Upper River Valley.
He founded 12 Neighbours as a charitable organization in 2022 to empower people to break cycles of poverty, and reintegrate residents back into the economy as productive members of society. “Sometimes people say we don’t have a homeless issue, we have a drug or mental health issue,” says Marcel. “While people may try to point to one cause and say everything is a consequence of that one thing, the real cause is past trauma.”
Mark Osborne, a current resident at 12 Neighbours, confessed his heartbreaking truth in a biography he wrote during a stint in jail in 2012. In it he tells the horrifying tale of being kidnapped and sexually assaulted when he was in Grade 3. Mark says he didn’t have the kind of support a child would need to recover from such a devastating experience, and life spiralled out of control.
“It took me a while to get where I am today,” says Mark. “I was completely stupid about my whole life. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be alive.”
Before moving into 12 Neighbours in 2022, Mark had spent more than two years unhoused and living rough, followed by three years in a shelter. Now, more than 30 years since the trauma, Mark is trying again to get his life together and is using every opportunity his 12 Neighbours community offers. One advantage is a fixed address, because having no address is a barrier to securing identification, without which it’s nearly impossible to secure employment.
Marcel says that not everyone is dealt the same hand. “A poverty of circumstances can lead to a poverty of identity, and they develop a narrative that ‘I’m lesser than,’” he adds. “The key work in helping people move ahead is to chip away at that identity narrative, not just their circumstances.”
Mark’s circumstances have taken a turn for the better and he can’t contain his excitement. “I have hopes and dreams,” he says. “I have enrolled in a GED program through 12 Neighbours, and I just started a job at Walmart.”
Marcel says that while giving is good, it must be an experience of dignity and grace. “The mistake people make is to say that that person made their own bed,” he says. “Well, yes, we all make our own choices but not all our choices are created equal. Based on one’s circumstances, their choices may not feel like choices at all … We hear, ‘Well, he’s choosing to live outside. Yeah well, not really. No one really wants to live outside but it might be that we don’t understand the consequences of choosing to go to a shelter.”
While Marcel’s Christian beliefs fuel his initiative, faith is not required to live at 12 Neighbours. “It’s not an official faith-based community, but a number of individuals are,” he says. “Like any other community, there are those who aren’t interested in that, and that’s fine.”
Mark is one who finds solace in his faith. He says that he became a Christian when he was in jail, and he gives thanks for people like Marcel. “Marcel is always kind, willing to have a conversation with you. It’s nice when people listen.”
Marcel maintains that addressing poverty must start with providing secure housing. “While well intentioned, emergency responses like tents, shelters, food banks, and soup kitchens may save lives, they do little to improve them,” he says. “We don’t have to surrender to the fact that we are going to have a huge and growing homelessness issue or that we just have to live with it. In our country, with our capacity, there is no reason why we can’t be in a very, very different place. And we should be.”
Kate Rogers, mayor of Fredericton, says that 12 Neighbours makes an important contribution, among a variety of solutions required to address the growing countrywide issue of insecure housing and homelessness.
“There is an ecosystem of folks seeking and providing solutions and Marcel is among them. He has spent the necessary time, done his due diligence, and used his own funds to address the problem and be part of the solution,” she says. “He’s an industrious individual.”
Marcel is an Atlantic Canadian business success story. In 2011, he sold Radian6, a tech company that monitored and analyzed social media, to an American business called Salesforce, for $340 million, bringing a renowned tech player and major employer to New Brunswick, spurring on the technology and innovation industry, and encouraging investors to support more local startups. The most recent community benefit was Marcel’s contribution of $4.5 million to the development of 12 Neighbours, in addition to his securing government funding and private contributions to complete the $12 million project.
While that might sound exorbitant, Marcel knows the cost of inaction is much greater.
“It costs $55,000 per year, including law enforcement, social development, and health care to support someone living outside,” he explains. We might not think of homelessness as a health-care issue, Marcel notes that living outside is dangerous and people get hurt. He recalls recent fires and deaths among the homeless who were only trying to keep warm in their tents. He adds, “One night’s admission to hospital costs $4,500, while one year of rent subsidy in a tiny house costs the same. I’ve never seen a better business case.”
According to Peter Cullen, the interim executive director of United Way Central New Brunswick, “Marcel knew that people can more easily move into the continuum of care once they have a literal home base. Housing must come first because it’s a necessary condition to recover from poverty.” Cullen explains that 12 Neighbours housing enables more uptake of essential services and opportunities to improve education and employment status. “The hub Marcel has created is also helping community partners do their best work.”
Marcel hopes to encourage people to think in terms of development rather than emergency relief. “Charity is very nice,” says Marcel, “but sometimes we do more harm than good. If we only beat the alligators off, then that’s all we’re ever going to do, beat the alligators off.”
12 Neighbours offers addiction and mental-health counselling, medical services, training, and development, plus work opportunities through a variety of social enterprises including Neighbourly Coffee, Neighbourly Print Shop, and Neighbourly Homes, where each tiny house is built. Each enterprise provides opportunities to teach trade skills as well as generate income to support continued good works in their small, purpose-driven community.
“Governments tend to follow rather than lead,” Marcel says. “Sometimes the missing catalyst is a leadership gap, someone who says, ‘I’m going to go do this but do it in a positive and collaborative way.’ As citizen leaders we can carve paths that make it safe for government to come in behind and join us and together, we can make things happen. … You need somebody who knows that city, is connected to that community, to drive this kind of thing. You need local leaders who are going to push for it.”
He encourages people to get involved. “When it comes to federal and provincial governments, there are some really good programs, but funding can take a long time. That’s when it’s good to have partners, business leaders, government people who can pick up the phone and get things moving a little faster.”
According to Al Smith, one of the first residents of 12 Neighbours and known to everyone as Mayor Al, this community offers a place where people can feel proud, live independently in their homes, and take advantage of a support system. He and partner Chanda Woodworth lived homeless for five years. “We’ve been given a second chance, and we like it a lot,” Al says.
While Marcel explains that healthy and supportive relationships are an important social determinant of health, he witnesses the lived experience play out as residents like Al and Chandra, Mark, and Katrina chat with neighbours and passersby from the balconies of their tiny homes.
“We hang out here like people do in communities all across Canada,” Al says. “It’s home.”