I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want years of escalation, lawyers, rising costs, and a system where peace is only affordable for those with money. So I tried something else.
I’m part of a homeowners association that has been stuck in a long-running conflict. An office space in the building was bought by a new owner and partially demolished without the required approvals. Shared parts of the building were affected. Trust inside the house broke down.
What followed is familiar to many people: legal uncertainty, lawyers involved, slow processes, and mounting costs. The default solution in situations like this is always the same — fight it out.
There is, in theory, another option. Buy the space in question. Remove the source of the conflict. Restore peace in the building.
In practice, that option requires money I don’t have. And neither do most people in similar situations.
So instead of escalating, I built this. One Dollar Brick is a small internet experiment inspired by the Million Dollar Homepage. It asks a simple question: What happens if many people give a little, instead of a few people paying a lot?
A brick costs one dollar. It doesn’t buy ownership. It doesn’t promise returns. It’s just a brick — placed as a signal of collective support.
If enough bricks are placed, buying peace becomes possible. If not, at least the attempt was honest.
Because peace shouldn’t be a luxury. And conflict shouldn’t be affordable only to those with money.
This isn’t charity. It’s cooperation.