Smith met Chanda Woodworth in his early 50s, after he moved to Fredericton in 2016. He hadn’t expected to fall in love again, and he hadn’t planned on ending up in Fredericton at all. Smith was still grieving the death of his wife from cancer the previous summer, and had headed east from Hamilton, Ontario, to take care of his elderly father. But as soon as a mutual friend introduced Smith and Woodworth, the two clicked—and moved in together—immediately.
In the winter of 2022, Smith and Woodworth finally got the win they needed. The couple moved into the third home built by the 12 Neighbours team. They’re just two of dozens of people LeBrun’s project has helped back onto their feet in the last two years.
LeBrun’s philanthropic lightbulb moment came in 2015, while he was in Halifax for Inspire Justice, a social-justice event organized by the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada. One of the speakers, Rick Tobias, ran the Yonge Street Mission in Toronto for 23 years—operating a food bank, a youth centre and employment programs. At the end of his prepared remarks, an audience member asked Tobias what advice he’d give to someone starting out in advocacy work. To LeBrun’s surprise, Tobias choked up.
More than that, Homeboy gives participants a new way to see themselves as more than people who deserved to be dead or in jail. “I saw the power of purpose,” says LeBrun, “how a poverty of circumstances leads to a poverty of identity.
Unconventional stopgaps have emerged. One is encampments: controversial, makeshift tent cities that have cropped up—and set off legal turf wars—in urban and suburban areas alike. Another solution is tiny homes, which provide basic refuge to society’s most vulnerable in the form of small amounts of highly subsidized square footage.
Once LeBrun focused his vision, he started tagging along with outreach workers who handed out sandwiches, water and information about supports in Fredericton’s tent pods. He asked residents whether they’d ever consider living in a tiny-home town. The logistics of creating one weren’t simple, of course. LeBrun needed a plot of land big enough to accommodate a decent-sized community—close to necessary services, but sufficiently distanced from downtown to deter any interfering NIMBYism.
Most of the people who populate the community came from Fredericton’s By Names List, an inventory of unhoused individuals registered with local federally funded service agencies. The list helps social service workers prioritize need in a system that clearly doesn’t have the resources to help everyone. A committee of non-profit workers and reps from New Brunswick’s Department of Social Development ultimately determines who would be a good fit for 12 Neighbours.