SENATORS’ STATEMENTS — 12 Neighbours

Honourable senators, I would ask you to celebrate with me today the completion of the building phase of a social enterprise that serves as an example of an innovative way to address the multiple needs of those who find themselves chronically homelessness. I am talking about 12 Neighbours, a community of tiny, crayon-coloured permanent homes near a Walmart parking lot and on a city bus route in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

In two short years, there have been ninety-six 250-square-foot homes built and occupied. Yes, that is 8 groupings of 12 homes with tiny covered porches, shared yards and solar panels on each tiny roof. Some are homes to a couple.

Staff of 12 Neighbours are on site 24/7. Residents have access to goal-setting programs and counselling for addictions and mental health to help set them up to work for one of the social enterprises connected to the community. One of those enterprises is the building of more tiny homes, some as large as 350 square feet to be sold as a cottage or a granny suite. Fifty of the originally designed tiny homes have been ordered by a non-profit group on the Miramichi whose plan is to build a similar project to 12 Neighbours.

Last week, Neighbourly Coffee — the jewel of the social enterprises, which has a bakery and a teaching kitchen — opened to the public inside the non-profit’s sprawling sunlit community centre. My husband and I have enjoyed the delicious food and specialty coffees, and I predict that Neighbourly Coffee will become a local favourite. One of the people working there as a cook is a woman whom I first met when she and her partner were sleeping rough during the pandemic. These days, she spends her spare time cooking up pots of chili in the kitchen of her own tiny home to welcome her new neighbours.

To quote Marcel LeBrun, a social entrepreneur and the founder of 12 Neighbours, “I saw the power of purpose . . . how a poverty of circumstances leads to a poverty of identity.”

Marcel was persuaded by the “housing first” philosophy: the notion, supported by research, that putting people into safe, warm and proprietary places better sets them up to access other services.

“It’s investing in people as opposed to emergency relief,” he said during a recent interview with The Globe and Mail.

He continued:

You take someone who was living outside, working full‑time just to get food, and you put them in a house — they can finally start to deal with trauma.

Congratulations on the success of 12 Neighbours, Marcel.

Thank you. Wela’lin.