05/19/2026
Fredericton, New Brunswick. 2011.
Marcel LeBrun sold Radian6—the social media monitoring company he'd co-founded—to Salesforce for $326 million. At 40 years old, he was set for life. He could have done anything. Moved anywhere. Retired to a beach. Built a mansion. Collected cars. Done what wealthy tech entrepreneurs do.
Instead, he stayed in Fredericton. And he watched.
He watched tents go up on grassy patches in the city's core. He watched people living in the woods behind shopping centers, sleeping in their cars in parking lots, huddling in doorways when winter came. He watched the number of homeless people in his small city of 65,000 grow while the waitlist for affordable housing in New Brunswick swelled to more than 8,000 names.
And somewhere in the gap between the city he remembered and the city he was looking at, something clicked.
Marcel described the realization simply. The problem of homelessness, he said, didn't seem all that different from launching a startup. You have a problem. You have barriers to overcome. They're not simple, but they're solvable.
He and his wife Sheila—an occupational therapist who understood better than most what people needed to rebuild their lives—began researching. They visited social enterprises in major American cities, in Calgary, in Winnipeg, in Ghana. They looked for models where housing wasn't just a roof but a platform. Where giving someone a home was the first step of a longer journey, not the whole solution.
In 2021, Marcel built the first prototype tiny home in his own backyard.
He laid out the entire community plan in the grass with wooden stakes, walking the measurements himself, adjusting distances until they felt right. He stood in that backyard and tried to imagine what 96 homes in a community could look like and what they could do for the people who lived in them.
Then he built the factory.
Marcel converted a warehouse on Fredericton's north side into a production facility. Not for software. For homes. By the time the final home was completed in April 2024, that factory was producing a fully built, architecturally designed tiny home every four days at a cost of $55,000 each.
Each home is approximately 250 square feet. Small, yes. But designed with genuine care. Private. Lockable. With a kitchen and bathroom. A space where a person could close the door and have the simple dignity of being home.
The community is called 12 Neighbours.
It sits near a Walmart parking lot on Fredericton's north side. From the outside, it looks like nothing much—rows of small buildings in bright colors. Then you walk in.
Ninety-six homes in crayon colors line the paths. There's a community center with a café, a bakery, a teaching kitchen, and a silk-screen printing business—all run as enterprises by the residents themselves. There are goal-setting programs, addiction counseling, and mental health support.
People who came in from the woods, from their cars, from the shelter system, now have jobs. Some have used their time at 12 Neighbours to save money. Some have moved on to independent housing. One resident—dubbed the mayor of 12 Neighbours by his neighbors—has lived in home number three since the beginning and watched every single one of the other 95 homes arrive past his window.
Marcel and Sheila personally invested millions to get the project started. In 2023, the provincial and federal governments added $13 million in funding. The model has attracted attention across Canada.
Think about what that means. A tech entrepreneur who could have retired at 40 instead spent a decade researching homelessness, building prototypes in his backyard, and converting a warehouse into a home factory.
The first couple to move into 12 Neighbours had spent ten months living in a tent. They took sponge baths in the woods behind a lumber yard. They moved into the first house in February 2022.
One of the early residents, a man named Randy Burtch, had been living in his 2004 Chevy Impala for about a year. He worked odd jobs in construction, but pandemic-era rents in Fredericton had skyrocketed beyond what he could afford. He slept in his car. He had no kitchen. No shower. No place that was his.
Randy described what a working kitchen meant to him simply: "If I want a shower, I can have one. If I want something to eat, I can cook it." He said it turned his health around.
That's what $55,000 and 250 square feet bought. Not luxury. Dignity.
Marcel isn't finished.
He's launched a second initiative called Neighbourly Homes—a rapidly deployable transitional housing model designed to be built, installed, and operated in communities across the Maritimes. His stated goal is to eliminate chronic homelessness in the region, and then help other communities do the same.
He still shows up on site daily. He knows the residents by name. He attends community events. He is, in his own words, a community builder—not just a builder of homes, but a builder of the thing that makes a place worth living in.
Here's what makes Marcel LeBrun's story different from most wealthy-person-helps-the-homeless stories.
He didn't write a check and walk away. He didn't fund a gala or put his name on a building. He didn't hire someone else to solve the problem while he moved on to the next thing.
He laid wooden stakes in his backyard grass and walked the measurements himself. He built a prototype. He built a factory. He figured out how to produce homes for $55,000 instead of $200,000. He created jobs for the residents, not just beds. He built a community, not a shelter.
And he did it in Fredericton, New Brunswick—a city of 65,000 people that most Canadians couldn't find on a map. Not Toronto. Not Vancouver. Not somewhere that would get him attention or accolades or recognition.
He did it where he saw the problem. And he stayed.
Most tech millionaires who "give back" fund scholarships at their alma mater or donate to museums that will put their names on plaques. They write checks to causes that look good in press releases. They attend fundraising galas and pose for photos with people they'll never see again.
Marcel LeBrun built a factory that makes homes every four days and gave people living in cars and tents the keys to a place with a lockable door, a working kitchen, and a bathroom where they could shower in private.
That's not philanthropy. That's engineering a solution.
The journalist from Maclean's magazine who profiled him closed with a line that's hard to improve on: "The province could use 80 LeBruns. Canada could use many more."
Because here's what one person with $326 million and a specific idea did:
Built 96 homes. Created jobs for people who'd been unemployable. Gave people living in tents and cars a place to rebuild their lives. Figured out how to produce housing for $55,000 per unit when traditional construction was failing. Attracted $13 million in government funding by proving the model worked. Launched a second initiative to scale the solution across an entire region.
And he did it all while still living in Fredericton, still showing up daily, still knowing residents by name, still treating this like the startup it is—a problem with barriers to overcome that are complicated but solvable.
Randy Burtch, who lived in his Chevy Impala working construction jobs that couldn't cover rent, now has a kitchen. A shower. A home.
The couple who spent ten months in a tent taking sponge baths in the woods now have a lockable door and a place to call theirs.
Ninety-six people who were living in cars, tents, woods, and shelters now live in a community with crayon-colored homes, jobs in a bakery and café, and neighbors who understand what it's like to start over.
That's what $326 million looks like when someone decides wealth is a tool to solve problems instead of a trophy to display.
Most wealthy people talk about giving back. Marcel LeBrun built a factory and gave people homes.
Most wealthy people fund studies about homelessness. Marcel LeBrun laid stakes in his backyard grass and walked the measurements himself.
Most wealthy people retire after selling their company. Marcel LeBrun started building.
There are 8,000 people on the housing waitlist in New Brunswick. There are 96 homes at 12 Neighbours. The math doesn't work yet. But it's working better than it was.
And Marcel LeBrun is still building. Still showing up. Still walking the site. Still knowing the residents. Still treating chronic homelessness like the solvable problem he believes it is.
Because that's what engineers do. They see a problem. They study it. They build prototypes. They test solutions. They scale what works.
Marcel LeBrun sold a software company and used the money to become a different kind of engineer. Not software. Social infrastructure.
He's building homes every four days. He's building jobs for people who needed a chance. He's building a model that other communities can replicate.
But most importantly, he's building proof that one person with a specific idea, enough stubbornness, and a willingness to lay wooden stakes in backyard grass can change something real.
Fredericton, New Brunswick. Population 65,000. More than 8,000 people on the housing waitlist.
And one tech entrepreneur who sold his company for $326 million, stayed in his hometown, and decided that watching people freeze in tents was unacceptable.
So he built a factory. And then he built 96 homes. And then he kept building.
Because that's what happens when someone with resources decides the problem isn't too complicated—it's just unsolved.
Marcel LeBrun looked at homelessness the way he looked at launching a startup: barriers to overcome, yes, but nothing impossible.
And then he built the solution, one tiny home every four days, until 96 people who'd been living in cars and tents had lockable doors, working kitchens, and the simple dignity of being home.
The province could use 80 LeBruns. Canada could use many more.
But right now, Fredericton has one. And 96 people are living proof that it's enough to start.
