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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
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.
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.
Feels like now is the best time for other nations to have low capital gains taxes. No?
I get that he enjoys staying involved with the project including providing/helping services for the community, but this probably doesn't need to use the "30% of income rent" crutch that is typical. Would be less time consuming to sell homes at cost, perhaps partner with bank to guarantee mortgages at low rates, let the community be a self managed HOA. Can make unlimited communities that way instead of tying up all your/his time into this one.
That may be fine at first, but the price of those houses will skyrocket every time they're sold until they reach the current market prices again. By only renting them, he can ensure the price stays artificially low.
This is good, but if we address this at a systemic level, we don't need to put people in tiny low-density homes unconnected to anything for it to be affordable.
Presumably local governments have some mechanism for when they know a house costs X materials and Y labor, and they see new construction costing significantly more than that.
The result is detached homes@avg 75USD/sqft and apartments@55/sqft. With current interest rates of 6.768%, you'd get ~400 sqft homes with a $200/mo 30 year mortgage at those prices, 600sqft if interest rates were 3%.
Yup. A group local to me put up around 20 tiny homes with a grant from the city. With the cost of upkeep, it would have been cheaper for the city to pay for 20 hotel rooms. Which wouldn't have had any fewer amenities than the tiny homes they made.
There's some benefit to them as backyard "mother in law houses" or for a cabin in the woods. For solving homelessness, no, there are better options.
Remember, theres a gigantic difference between the wealth of a billionaire and the wealth of a millionaire. For one thing, its possible to make a million without harming others, a BILLION though, you HAVE to sacrifice others to achieve.
On paper, sure. But I might argue that the process of accruing paper wealth as a backstop against misfortune and a reserve during retirement is inherently deleterious - forcing people to forego quality of life in the immediate term as a hedge against the future. This is a highly inefficient process for individuals to manage - who carry the whole cost of an incidental risk/exceptionally long life. And it is the whole reason public pensions and public insurance came to exist.
That's before you get into the moral hazard of certain professions and fortunate individuals being predisposed towards retirement, while others work right up until their dying days.
While the guy happened to manage to acquire almost $400 million by selling his company, it seems that he's really trying to do some good with that, quite frankly, ridiculous amount of money.
Also it seems that his employees were compensated somewhat above market rate while he owned the company.
Not exactly a dragon of his own making, we shall observe his career with great interest to see if he follows what seems to be his chosen path, as of now.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars
Some rocker tried to do that in LA and they arrested him and kicked out all the homeless.
Impressive, it's even a walkable place seen that it is a mixed use neighborhood with commercial buildings too
Eat this guy last
He can sit on my side of the table if he keeps this up