This is a cool idea.

Good for him, but this is pretty much an Orphan-Crushing Machine moment.

Has he tried paying his employees a good wage and benefits?

Spacing looks a bit odd. Would a communal park and then less space between each be better? Not really enough space around each one to be much use beyond a few plant pots anyway.
- They're probably parking spaces. It doesn't look like a bad set up. Parking is behind your little studio apartment style trailer.

They look like toilets with a cute small porch

Solar powered, too.

i think there's an area in project zomboid that looks like that

99 is not nearly enough but it's a start at least
- I would say that this particular millionaire did his part to help out. If every millionaire/billionaire spent the same percentage of their wealth on similar projects we would be in pretty good shape as far as homelessness goes.
- Not nearly enough? How many homeless people were in this guy's town?!
  
  99 would take in every homeless person in a wide berth around here. WIDE. And I'm next door to the second poorest county in Florida.
  
  i mean depends how big the town is

I see no reason to believe that letting this guy make unilateral decisions is somehow better than taxing him appropriately and using the revenue to build public housing.
- Did anyone say that it was better this way? He could just go buy another yatch instead.
  Dont let perfection be the enemy of better
- This statement might be true, but we're not taxing him. Should he just donate his money to the government?
- Sure there are lots of failures to the way we govern ourselves. This shouldn't be a need. The reality is that it is a need and that person did what he could. Have you?
- If every billionaire did this and ended homelessness perhaps they would have a point about their wealth hoarding. I won't be holding my breath for this to happen though. Tax the rich!
- Absolutely. We don’t need kings making decisions like this. The downside is the difficulty in forcing government and the anti-help-anyone segment of our society to spend such taxation correctly to actually help people.
  
  I’m also angry he did a good thing despite the government’s abject failure to tax the rich.
- Especially because his unilateral decision is optional. Someone got lucky with his choice vs someone was guaranteed an outcome.
- What makes you think Trump's administration will make better use of that money?
- Corruption could make that money go to some people's 3rd, 4rd or their relatives houses UNFORTUNATELY . The question here is: what about those who pay a rent???
  
  Corruption already makes most millionaires' and billionaires' money go to that anyway. At least if it's taxed some of it will actually go to toward necessary housing, maybe even frequently enough that it's not newsworthy when it does, the way it is now.
  
  So we're so scared of corruption that (checks notes) we stop even trying for fairness and instead just let rich fucks make all the decisions and hope for the best?

How many stories have I seen about billionaires building housing? Zero. Though, to be fair, I've only seen a meme about a millionaire doing so. No verification that it happened.
- https://themindcircle.com/millionaire-builds-99-homes-to-reduce-homelessness/
  Seems to be true :).
  
  There's someone in Kelowna doing something similar.

Good start, weird that it's built like a CPU heat sink. Wouldn't it be cheaper to build duplexes or quadplexes? Fewer walls, less insulation per person...
- These are tiny homes that are built in a shop and just dropped onto the little concrete pad once they're done. A small crew was able to build them out over time, so I can't say which option exactly is cheaper. One advantage was they were able to move people in as they were built too.
  Edit to add a word
- Even lower income people want a places they can call their own. Even lower income people prefer not to deal with other people’s noise or stomping or flooded sink. Even lower income people don’t want to deal with a building manager for repairs. Even lower income people want to be able to make choices in their living accommodations.
  Plus these are probably all factory built and I see a simple gravel foundation. Cheap and fast to set up, but it’s still a house. Probably much cheaper than full scale houses
- probably zoning laws. that's a HUGE part of why we don't just build more apartments in many places. it's why people get so passionate about the "white flight" as it's known and nimbyism. everyone wants to fix homelessness, but in any of the places that one could effectively build community housing it is illegal to make anything that provides housing to more than 1 or 2 families. the people that live there want homelessness to go away, but when it's proposed to build low income housing nearby they freak out and say "poor people and drug addicts? they do crime. low income housing is cool, but not in my backyard".
  being poor in america has such a stigma that homeowners consistently vote to ban them from living nearby by banning apartments. to be perfectly honest, I'm just waiting for zoning laws to try and make these tiny homes illegal now that people are building them for the poor.
  
  And building codes. The foundation alone can be the reason. A regular full scale building requires a concrete or piered foundation or slab depend8ng on the area, which is fairly expensive and time consuming. These look like simple gravel foundations, which is fine for that size structure
- What !? Sharing a wall with someone else because it's more efficient in terms construction and maintenance costs?! Get outta here you commi!

Millionaire? Nice. Billionaires should follow suit, but 1000x
(With ~800 billionaires in the US, that's 79,200,000 homes)
- They didn't become billionaires by being charitable.
  Quite the contrary. You CAN'T accumulate that much money except by exploiting others, creating issues like homelessness.
- How many homes do we actually need?
  
  Funny story, we actually have enough housing for everyone. It just isn't always where people want to live, and corporate landlords would rather leave a space vacant to drive up rents than make all of their inventory available, so there is a shit ton of residential (and commercial) property that is basically abandoned.
  
  The official homeless number for 2024 in the US was 771,480. That's probably just reported and not actual.
  
  Analysts think we’re about 4.5 million homes short of what we would need to a well-functioning housing market. I’m not sure exactly how they’re defining that.

The government should have done that. At least Trump will build homes for the homeless veterans at least. This guy is doing his charitable work. Good for him. Even if it isn't his responsibility just because he's wealthy.
- Trump ain’t doing shit
  
  He only just signed an executive order stating as such lol
  https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-10/trump-orders-va-to-house-6-000-veterans-in-a-west-la-national-center-for-warrior-independence
  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-build-national-center-homeless-veterans-funds-previously-spent-illegal-aliens.amp
  https://veterans.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=6702

Source? Did it actually work? Very cool if so.
- I used to live in a town that did something very similar to this. It sorta worked but mostly did not. But as another commenter pointed out you need more than just homes. Obviously they help a ton but a lot of people need more help than just a roof over their head. Financially, medically, mentally, employment... It's a bigger, more complicated problem.
  But it goes without saying that this is a step in the right direction and absolutely better than collectively shrugging our shoulders and walking away.
  
  Housing is the basis for addressing most of those other issues.
- My city does something like this as part of our homeless program and we're at "net-zero" homeless. It doesn't work on it's own, but the tiny homes give people a stable place to keep their stuff safe and the elements off their bodies, it gives them an address they can use for things like mail and applications, and it gives social workers a place to find them reliably. It's the start of a long process to help them back to their feet.
  
  Being on the streets is also incredibly dangerous. Putting drug users around other drug users as well doesn't keep them off drugs.
- If you give a homeless person a home, then by definition, they are no longer homeless.
  On a less pedantic note, yes, it should. Some countries (like mine) provide a secure place to live as step one, when helping the homeless. Having somewhere safe to sleep, keep your property, etc. makes all the other steps involved in solving your problems much easier, leading to a better success rate in getting people back on their feet.
  
  Further it enables them to apply for all manners of documents as they have an address to their name. Try getting any sort of document from a bank or governmental branch without an address. Trying to get a passport without address? Nope. No address no ID, no Bank account and mostly no employment anywhere without either of the two.
- Here's one article about it.
  https://macleans.ca/society/tiny-homes-fredericton/
  I don't remember where I saw this the first time, but it did mention that this had become a thing in a few American cities too (this story was from Fredericton, Canada)
- This is what I found: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/12-neighbours-founder-transitional-housing-1.7510785
  But basically, this is something that works in Finland well enough https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/look-finlands-housing-first-initiative

$10k per house per million?
I hope he was a millionaire several times over…
- Almost certainly. Having $1M is unremarkable these days. Technically a millionaire is someone with more than a million and less than a billion, but usually these days it refers to people with hundreds of millions.
  
  A million could buy you like... Two houses. Maybe 3 or 4 at a push if they're small.
- what kind of math? you did 1 million/99?
  that’s meaningless… yes, he would have had to spend several million to do this… they’re probably tiny homes..
  and hell the whole meme is probably fake
  
  it's real. the 'millionaire' sold a startup for $340m. the homes are in new brunswick and cost $50k ea to build and furnish. the land was $500k. the houses are ~ 240-300 sq ft tiny homes. rent (at the time that source was written) starts at $200.
  
  what kind of math?

is this a joke? any of those buildings are smaller then the cars they have!
- Considering everything some of them own can fit in a shopping cart, they are mansions.
- I'm sorry, are the free houses you built for the homeless much larger than that?
  They're homeless, not mansionless. A large number of tiny houses is absolutely a fantastic way to help.
- Look up articles about ADUs (accessory dwelling units). This is a legitimate housing category based on the tiny house fad

The wealthy do not deserve praise for spending the money they leeched from society to solve problems that could have been paid for by taxes they avoided paying. The wealthy are NOT going to solve society's problems long term, just drag them out so society relies on them instead of solving it themselves.
- Inbe4 the starter-home priced housing is bought up, demolished, rebuilt, and sold as luxury housing on the market, as airbnbs, or rentals with no rent control.
- He's a millionaire, not a billionaire. Calm down. A millionaire most likely worked hard and earned their wealth. It's billionaires who cheat.
  
  Millionaire covers everyone from having a million or two due to home equity all the way to 999 million because they just haven't hit a billion yet. Someone who can drop a million dollars or more and still be a millionaire has multiple millions.
  Equating the two is "not all millionaires".
- Do you chuds ever get tired of repeating the same drivel over and over?
  Yeah I'm am pretty glad my taxes totally went to buy more missiles and tanks. /s
  
  No, we want taxes to help the homeless and other members of society in need dumbass.

I'm chill with rich people as long as some of their money goes to helping people

i hope it works and contains a forever lease and not just a month to month where the land will be improved by these houses then said millionaire sells the land for a profit and the people living there are screwed yet again.
- I hope the opposite: that these are more transitional, with associated services to help people get back on their feet for an eventual move to more standard housing when they are ready
- A forever lease dude? If that’s in the deal then imma be honest with you and tell you me and my hommies are declaring homelessness and moving to wherever this meme is from. We can rebuild our lives from a point of never paying rent again.
  
  If you have a hatred of hierarchy and a love of nature send me a DM. I'm interviewing people for an intentional community.
  The first 5 people that pass the vibe check will get a one dollar, 99 year lease, on .5 acres to call your own. As long as you also partake in fixing/improving central infra.
  Oh and one heavy caveat... You gotta be cool with winter. We are in Canada.
  
  I mean that homeownership. i pay prop taxes but own my home. Forgive me. i was pooping and reading and forgot my words. 😂

If the photo is accurate, those 'homes' are tiny. Barely bigger than a garage compared to the cars next to them.
ETA: yup, as starters for homeless people these are great. I retract my incredulity.
- Okay, and? Infinitely better than being on the street. Someone does something nice and people like you still complain.
  
  Sure, I guess as a starter to get off the streets they're definitely better than nothing.
- A safe place to sleep, store some shit, shower. Could be better, but sounds great to me.
- My garage is bigger than my house and I'm very very happy with my house.
  My garage is really not that big. Just that our house is 12 ft by 24 ft...

I think the term "homeless" is really a euphemism that makes it easier for wealthy people to talk about poor people (if you have shelter, food, and are not living paycheck to paycheck you count as wealthy), and it results in misunderstandings about what the real problems are.
Giving a house to someone who lives on the streets is a nice gesture but it doesn't address the underlying problems - unemployment, unemployability, health problems, psychological problems, lack of social support structure, lack of supportive relationships (e.g. friends and family) - you can't just fix someone's life with a building.
It's like a grade-school-level understanding of the problem ("just give the homeless people homes! then they're not homeless anymore! problem solved!"). Without putting in a real effort to support these individuals' lives, to understand and address what put them in that situation in the first place, this is a temporary patch that will end in relapse.
- It’s still a huge help. You don’t have to solve all of a persons problems to help them with one of their problems.
  
  Arguably the most immediate of their problems, that gets in the way of them addressing ALL of their other problems.
- As commented elsewhere in the post.