10 ms·

Rough sleeping has been almost eradicated in Helsinki

92 points by Sami_Lehtinen 8y ago

sdrothrock 8y ago
dang, the headline is "The city with no homeless on its streets", which is clickbaity and vague, but the current link title is hard to understand. Could we maybe compromise with "Homelessness has almost been eradicated in Helsinki?"
- lisper 8y ago
  "Rough sleeping" is British slang for sleeping without a roof over your head. Americans' don't know this idiom.
  - sandebert 8y ago
    As a representative for Sweden, I can say this is something we had problems understanding also.
- stevenjohns 8y ago
  Being homeless could also mean that your house burned down so you’re staying in a hotel. Or that you’re in a battered women’s shelter. Or maybe sleeping in a car or at a friend’s house. It doesn’t just mean sleeping outside - this is a common misconception.
  - yeutterg 8y ago
    Some digital nomads classify themselves as homeless, although it's a bit tongue-in-cheek as they are clearly of a different socioeconomic status. At least for me, when I hear the word homeless I first think of someone living on the streets. We don't have exact equivalent to rough sleeping in the U.S. that I can readily think of.
- dang 8y ago
  I think it's fine for the BBC to use a British idiom. It only takes a simple lookup to understand it.
  - sdrothrock 8y ago
    I'm not arguing that the BBC shouldn't have used it, but that the editorialized submission headline here on HN could have been a bit more user-friendly -- it's not the headline that the BBC used. The BBC, in fact, used the word "homeless" in its own headline: "The city with no homeless on its streets." :)
    - DanBC 8y ago
      The BBC is experimenting with headlines so it's possible OP submitted the article when it was different.
    - dang 8y ago
      The HN title uses language from the summary paragraph below the article heading, which is sort of an extended subtitle. That's legit to do on HN, especially when the language there is more factual and less baity. I don't see anything user-unfriendly about using the phrase "rough sleeping". Remember that this is a site for gratifying curiosity. Encountering a phrase you haven't heard before is an opportunity to be curious. Plus it's good for HN readers to have to work a little. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20%22work%20a%20little%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
craspoli 8y ago
Rough sleeping? Who uses that term about homeless? I never heard it before..
yeutterg 8y ago
FYI, as an urban American I had never heard the term rough sleeping. Some brief Googling leads me to believe this is an alternative term for homelessness mostly used in the UK. You may consider changing the title to include the word homeless. It's more descriptive to Americans, at least to n=1.
- pmiller2 8y ago
  “Rough sleeping” doesn’t mean “homeless.” It means “sleeping outside without shelter.” Homeless people live in cars, shelters, or on friends’ couches, too, not just literally on the street.
  - yeutterg 8y ago
    Point taken and appreciated. I agree that homeless is a bit of a catch-all, but I'm not sure that we have any equivalent phrase to rough sleeping in the US (at least on the East Coast). When I hear the word homeless, I first think of people living on the streets.
    - lazyasciiart 8y ago
      "unsheltered" is the term used in the US.
      - yeutterg 8y ago
        Haven't heard it used much, but it makes total sense. Thanks!
  - loeg 8y ago
    Do you count tents and cars as shelter that disqualifies "sleeping rough"? I wouldn't, but you included cars in your counter example.
    - lazyasciiart 8y ago
      Traditionally yes, they do count, but as it becomes a more longterm solution and people start modifying vehicles for the purpose it becomes a grey area. https://www.urban-initiatives.org/reports/are-all-persons-sleeping-vehicles-homeless-and-should-they-be-included-homeless-counts https://www.urban-initiatives.org/reports/are-all-persons-sl...
anovikov 8y ago
I don't know why is this even a problem. There is no rough sleeping or begging in even such a poor country as Belarus. People just know it's a no-no, simply cops have been very persistent at removing them for a few years, and nobody left willing to try.
- cschep 8y ago
  where do the cops put them? you can't just remove people.
  - lazyasciiart 8y ago
    State sponsored forced labor camps https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2017/271144.htm https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2017/271144... https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-belarus-iran-turkmenistan-human-traffickers-report/29326302.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-belarus-iran-turkmenistan-hum...
  - orthoxerox 8y ago
    Yes you can. If people support anti-homeless spikes these people will tolerate cops dealing with the homeless by giving them a free ride to the nearest forest in winter. Out of sight, out of mind.
    - anovikov 8y ago
      Thing is, if this system works reliably and swiftly enough, it stops being so scary coz you run out of bums: people are deterred well enough from bumming. And you don't need to be as harsh to them as you say, just let everyone understand that spending nights in the street begging and drinking will not be tolerated. Plus of course, you need to have at least some social safety net to help those of them that can be helped, and they have it in Belarus, the country has an expansive system of redundant government-sponsored workplaces which functions almost as universal base income.
  - anovikov 8y ago
    That system has been in place since Soviet era and works flawlessly. First there is a distribution center where these people are identified (fingerprints) to see if they've been there already. If they are disabled they are sent to so-called 'rehabilitation centers', which are not much guarded and it's a no-brainer to escape, and is in general not a good place to be. If they are able-bodied they are sent to work (in theory it is mandatory work, it is an administrative sentence, but they are almost not guarded there and can escape easily), if they are alcoholics or drug addicts they are sent to so-called LTPs, prison-type rehabs, from which it's harder to escape, and if they are mentally ill they are sent to prison-type mental institution, from which it's almost impossible to escape. If someone is found out to get there, escape, and get there on and on, then it's a criminal offense (sounds like 'systematic homelessness') then they are sent to normal gulag-style forced labor camp (as in Russia, there are almost no prisons as such in Belarus, almost every institution which looks like prison is in fact a jail - people are kept there only prior to being sentenced). That system sounds like well-balanced and fair to me, even if is not perfect. Being a (chronic, i.e. semi-permanent or permanent, as opposed to someone who just happened to get in a tough life situation) homeless, is an obvious crime against public order. Crime difficult to effectively punish without resorting to terror, and yet a crime. Belarusians have built a well-balanced, working system which lets good law-abiding citizens feel safe in the streets.
ecmandail 8y ago
I wonder what ratio is in London.
adamnemecek 8y ago
For this to happen there needs to be a cultural shift in the US. Finland values equality, US not so much.
- tenpies 8y ago
  It's not even cultural, there are huge demographic, economic, and social differences between Finland and the US. I always find it ironic when people prop up the Nordic countries as utopian, but completely ignore the price of these "utopias". Nothing is ever free.
  - kwhitefoot 8y ago
    No one is claiming any of this is free. Some are claiming, often with evidence from the US, that providing apartments is cheaper than the kind of charity based temporary shelters that are usually the only thing available. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-corinth/think-utah-solved-homeles_b_9380860.html?guccounter=1 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-corinth/think-utah-solv... https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how?t=1549465405874 https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...
abhinai 8y ago
"Rough sleeping". I learned a new phrase today. :)
komali2 8y ago
I wish we'd do this. I get in arguments with friends, usually the response is "why should they be housed if they're just gonna drink or do drugs?" "Why should there be free public restrooms? Homeless people might shoot up or have sex in them." Well... They're drinking, shooting up, and having sex right at the bus stop, so I'd happily pay to have them do it out of sight, without even considering the fact that it's more moral to care for the downtrodden. So much pride seems wrapped up in it. "why should I pay for someone else to be a lazy drug addict? That's MY MONEY!" It's not a solution oriented mindset. Like, they're gonna shoot up on the street where you gotta step over their needles, or in a house away from you. Seems obvious to me, even if it's more expensive. If you're looking for a similar solution to getting the homeless out of sight without "costing tax-payer money," the only one I can think of is murdering the homeless, or maybe shipping them to an island? Obviously, insane. So how do I overcome the pride barrier in these conversations?
- chefkoch 8y ago
  >Well... They're drinking, shooting up, and having sex right at the bus stop But then you can put them in jail which much even more expensive, but they are punished for being poor.
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    Expensive is good, those prison contractors need work you know.
- adventured 8y ago
  It's an approach that has shown dramatic positive results in the US over the last 20 years. The shelter the homeless programs in the US reduced the homeless population from ~650,000 to ~550,000 today over one decade (2007-2016), despite the great recession occuring during that time (with a massive spike in unemployment and people losing their homes). Unsheltered homelessness, which would be approximately equivalent to rough sleeping in the UK I believe, declined from 255,000 to 176,000 (31%) over that decade. The Federal Government programs under Bush and Obama are solely responsible for the improvement, against a mediocre economic picture during that time. The housing first program under the Bush Admin, and then the various housing programs followed by that during Obama Admin[1]. If we're smart, we'll keep applying more resources that direction. It works [2] and we have overwhelming proof over the last two decades. [1] https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article24585973.html https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/econo... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-astonishing-decline-of-homelessness-in-america/279050/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-ast...
tomglynch 8y ago
The comments is a minefield of American's taking issue to the term 'Rough Sleeping'. Other countries also have sayings that you don't use. It's fine (even beneficial) to learn more about other cultures.
- yeutterg 8y ago
  Totally agree, I just wanted to point out that a lot of Americans probably wouldn't click on the article in the first place from the headline alone
  - DiabloD3 8y ago
    I'm an American and clicked on it in hopes I'd figure out what that meant. In the end, I had to come to the HN comments because I wasn't 100% sure they meant the homeless; since this is the BBC, and I've seen enough British TV, I know the British themselves use the word homeless. Maybe this is one of those weird misplaced PC-ification of the language things?
    - yeutterg 8y ago
      Same here, I didn't fully grasp the meaning from the article. Despite some of the skeptics' comments here, what I find fascinating is that we have a subject that could include a variety of situations (poor and living on the street, poor and sleeping on someone's couch, middle income and voluntarily choosing not to have a permanent living place), yet we tend to throw it all into the same "homeless" bucket. Another commenter suggested that "unsheltered" is the American equivalent to rough sleeping, and I think that makes a lot of sense, even though I haven't heard it much. Homelessness is obviously an issue in many American cities, and perhaps using more specific definitions could help us understand the issues unique to each group.
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      In a Brit context, homeless encompasses both rough sleeping and sofa surfing. There's countless homeless who aren't sleeping rough on the streets but are taking space, unofficially in someone's spare room, or literally on their sofa or floor. How are the two forms of homelessness distinguished in US usage? Rough sleeping is as it suggests: Sleeping outside, sleeping bag in shop doorway, tent, abandoned building, under the railway bridge etc.
dev_dull 8y ago
> Since 2007, their government has built homeless policies on the foundations of the "Housing First" principle. > Put simply, it gives rough sleepers or people who become homeless a stable and permanent home of their own as soon as possible. Sorry to sound cynical, but is this an actual solution? Rather than treating the cause, they are simply spending money to remove the symptom. This type of "fix" can be done with any problem given a deep enough pocket. I have nothing against housing the indigent. I'm just constantly surprised why nobody seems interested in treating the obvious and insidious causes of such problems.
- lazyasciiart 8y ago
  You sound both cynical and uninformed. Plenty of organizations have found that treating the obvious causes is far easier when people are in a house, and it is rapidly becoming recognized even in America as the cheapest and most effective way to reduce homelessness. http://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/housing-first-fact-sheet.pdf http://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/housin...
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  In a vicious cycle, an effect is also a cause, so treating the symptom can go a long way toward fixing the fundamental problem. Homelessness quickly becomes the cause of the problems as well as the result. Tough to get a job without an address, without a job, no lease. Poor sleep and no place to shower, even harder to get any kind of job. Add in an arrest history due to homelessness and jobs are harder still. And around the circle it goes.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  The lack of housing may in fact be a 'cause'. Once you have a 'safe space' of stability, you might be able to start to work on those other problems. 'No home' is an impossible place from which to make any progress at all. There is definitely an issue with 'tragedy of the commons' etc. but there's also no doubt in my mind the 'home first' thing works. That said - here in Canada, means tested welfare is enough to pay for rent, food - and basically nothing more. But a considerable number of people in my neighbourhood in Montreal chose 'crack + sleeping rough' over 'flat + food'. Even in the winter. There is 2 feet of snow outside and 1 guy sleeping rough less than 100m from where I write this, outside the clinic. Less than 2 blocks away, there are flats for $450/month $CDN, and they are not bad at all. (It's a very mixed neighbourhood). I suggest it's a tricky problem and that UBI-ish solutions might not work here, and that it probably needs to be a 'programme' i.e. combined with social workers, monitoring etc..
8bitsrule 8y ago
Imagine how much would have to be missing for you to get into that position. No money, no address, no phone, no bathroom, no place to stay, no regular meals, living outdoors and exposed, carrying everything you own around. What asylum could possibly give you a chance to rebuild? And here it turns out that what home-less people need most is a home.
softgrow 8y ago
Slightly tangential there is a 2002 Finnish comedy-drama film about a man who becomes homeless and then the dangers of sleeping rough in Helsinki (freeze to death) and so on. I enjoyed it in the cinema, it won awards at Cannes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past (Finnish:Mies vailla menneisyyttä)
lwhi 8y ago
I was in Helsinki last year at a music festival with a friend. The number of people begging for drinks cans and plastic bottles (to sell for recycling) was huge. Definitely in the hundreds. Sometimes we were asked to hurry up drinking, so the can / bottle could be taken. We also saw many people scour parks for recycling. I can't comment on the issue of homelessness, but I can comment on the huge disparity of wealth between the citizens of Helsinki. On one hand the fact that recycling was being taken care of felt admirable. But the creation of an economic underclass felt a bit obscene.
- container 8y ago
  Though they may be located in Helsinki, I think the people doing that sort of stuff usually don't have citizenship.
  - lwhi 8y ago
    True, I wonder if they are even included in the statistics?
    - container 8y ago
      It doesn't seem that they are. And as for the claim in the article that "no-one is begging", anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes in Helsinki knows that's not true. Most of the people begging might have come from abroad, but they're there. And when it comes to the statistics, I found this reference: "In addition to the homelessness visible in statistics, the existence of undocumented migrants is a phenomenon connected to homelessness. An undocumented migrant is a person, who does not have a legal right of residence and whose residence in Finland is not known to or permitted by the authorities. Different estimates by experts on the number of undocumented migrants in Finland vary between 500 and 3,000 people [...]" (PDF report downloaded from https://tinyurl.com/ycybdjtc https://tinyurl.com/ycybdjtc) Edit: Additionally, EU citizens may legally stay in Finland for months, are many are known to do so, even if they can unfortunately only make a living panhandling
cafard 8y ago
"HDI has a total of 403 apartments in Helsinki and the neighbouring city of Espoo." Wikipedia says that the city has a population of about 643 thousand, so there is one apartment per 1600 of population. San Francisco should then provide around 550 apartments. What sort of dent does that make in the San Francisco homeless problem? The BBC article mentions housing the formerly homeless with families and friends, and I have to think this makes up a pretty large part of the housing. It seems to me that this must require a degree of something in between persuasion and coercion.

92 points by Sami_Lehtinen 8y ago

dang, the headline is "The city with no homeless on its streets", which is clickbaity and vague, but the current link title is hard to understand. Could we maybe compromise with "Homelessness has almost been eradicated in Helsinki?"

lisper 8y ago
"Rough sleeping" is British slang for sleeping without a roof over your head. Americans' don't know this idiom.
- sandebert 8y ago
  As a representative for Sweden, I can say this is something we had problems understanding also.
stevenjohns 8y ago
Being homeless could also mean that your house burned down so you’re staying in a hotel. Or that you’re in a battered women’s shelter. Or maybe sleeping in a car or at a friend’s house. It doesn’t just mean sleeping outside - this is a common misconception.
- yeutterg 8y ago
  Some digital nomads classify themselves as homeless, although it's a bit tongue-in-cheek as they are clearly of a different socioeconomic status. At least for me, when I hear the word homeless I first think of someone living on the streets. We don't have exact equivalent to rough sleeping in the U.S. that I can readily think of.
dang 8y ago
I think it's fine for the BBC to use a British idiom. It only takes a simple lookup to understand it.
- sdrothrock 8y ago
  I'm not arguing that the BBC shouldn't have used it, but that the editorialized submission headline here on HN could have been a bit more user-friendly -- it's not the headline that the BBC used. The BBC, in fact, used the word "homeless" in its own headline: "The city with no homeless on its streets." :)
  - DanBC 8y ago
    The BBC is experimenting with headlines so it's possible OP submitted the article when it was different.
  - dang 8y ago
    The HN title uses language from the summary paragraph below the article heading, which is sort of an extended subtitle. That's legit to do on HN, especially when the language there is more factual and less baity. I don't see anything user-unfriendly about using the phrase "rough sleeping". Remember that this is a site for gratifying curiosity. Encountering a phrase you haven't heard before is an opportunity to be curious. Plus it's good for HN readers to have to work a little. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20%22work%20a%20little%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

craspoli 8y ago

Rough sleeping? Who uses that term about homeless? I never heard it before..

yeutterg 8y ago

FYI, as an urban American I had never heard the term rough sleeping. Some brief Googling leads me to believe this is an alternative term for homelessness mostly used in the UK. You may consider changing the title to include the word homeless. It's more descriptive to Americans, at least to n=1.

pmiller2 8y ago
“Rough sleeping” doesn’t mean “homeless.” It means “sleeping outside without shelter.” Homeless people live in cars, shelters, or on friends’ couches, too, not just literally on the street.
- yeutterg 8y ago
  Point taken and appreciated. I agree that homeless is a bit of a catch-all, but I'm not sure that we have any equivalent phrase to rough sleeping in the US (at least on the East Coast). When I hear the word homeless, I first think of people living on the streets.
  - lazyasciiart 8y ago
    "unsheltered" is the term used in the US.
    - yeutterg 8y ago
      Haven't heard it used much, but it makes total sense. Thanks!
- loeg 8y ago
  Do you count tents and cars as shelter that disqualifies "sleeping rough"? I wouldn't, but you included cars in your counter example.
  - lazyasciiart 8y ago
    Traditionally yes, they do count, but as it becomes a more longterm solution and people start modifying vehicles for the purpose it becomes a grey area. https://www.urban-initiatives.org/reports/are-all-persons-sleeping-vehicles-homeless-and-should-they-be-included-homeless-counts https://www.urban-initiatives.org/reports/are-all-persons-sl...

anovikov 8y ago

I don't know why is this even a problem. There is no rough sleeping or begging in even such a poor country as Belarus. People just know it's a no-no, simply cops have been very persistent at removing them for a few years, and nobody left willing to try.

cschep 8y ago
where do the cops put them? you can't just remove people.
- lazyasciiart 8y ago
  State sponsored forced labor camps https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2017/271144.htm https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2017/271144... https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-belarus-iran-turkmenistan-human-traffickers-report/29326302.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-belarus-iran-turkmenistan-hum...
- orthoxerox 8y ago
  Yes you can. If people support anti-homeless spikes these people will tolerate cops dealing with the homeless by giving them a free ride to the nearest forest in winter. Out of sight, out of mind.
  - anovikov 8y ago
    Thing is, if this system works reliably and swiftly enough, it stops being so scary coz you run out of bums: people are deterred well enough from bumming. And you don't need to be as harsh to them as you say, just let everyone understand that spending nights in the street begging and drinking will not be tolerated. Plus of course, you need to have at least some social safety net to help those of them that can be helped, and they have it in Belarus, the country has an expansive system of redundant government-sponsored workplaces which functions almost as universal base income.
- anovikov 8y ago
  That system has been in place since Soviet era and works flawlessly. First there is a distribution center where these people are identified (fingerprints) to see if they've been there already. If they are disabled they are sent to so-called 'rehabilitation centers', which are not much guarded and it's a no-brainer to escape, and is in general not a good place to be. If they are able-bodied they are sent to work (in theory it is mandatory work, it is an administrative sentence, but they are almost not guarded there and can escape easily), if they are alcoholics or drug addicts they are sent to so-called LTPs, prison-type rehabs, from which it's harder to escape, and if they are mentally ill they are sent to prison-type mental institution, from which it's almost impossible to escape. If someone is found out to get there, escape, and get there on and on, then it's a criminal offense (sounds like 'systematic homelessness') then they are sent to normal gulag-style forced labor camp (as in Russia, there are almost no prisons as such in Belarus, almost every institution which looks like prison is in fact a jail - people are kept there only prior to being sentenced). That system sounds like well-balanced and fair to me, even if is not perfect. Being a (chronic, i.e. semi-permanent or permanent, as opposed to someone who just happened to get in a tough life situation) homeless, is an obvious crime against public order. Crime difficult to effectively punish without resorting to terror, and yet a crime. Belarusians have built a well-balanced, working system which lets good law-abiding citizens feel safe in the streets.

ecmandail 8y ago

I wonder what ratio is in London.

adamnemecek 8y ago

For this to happen there needs to be a cultural shift in the US. Finland values equality, US not so much.

tenpies 8y ago
It's not even cultural, there are huge demographic, economic, and social differences between Finland and the US. I always find it ironic when people prop up the Nordic countries as utopian, but completely ignore the price of these "utopias". Nothing is ever free.
- kwhitefoot 8y ago
  No one is claiming any of this is free. Some are claiming, often with evidence from the US, that providing apartments is cheaper than the kind of charity based temporary shelters that are usually the only thing available. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-corinth/think-utah-solved-homeles_b_9380860.html?guccounter=1 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-corinth/think-utah-solv... https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how?t=1549465405874 https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...

abhinai 8y ago

"Rough sleeping". I learned a new phrase today. :)

komali2 8y ago

I wish we'd do this. I get in arguments with friends, usually the response is "why should they be housed if they're just gonna drink or do drugs?" "Why should there be free public restrooms? Homeless people might shoot up or have sex in them." Well... They're drinking, shooting up, and having sex right at the bus stop, so I'd happily pay to have them do it out of sight, without even considering the fact that it's more moral to care for the downtrodden. So much pride seems wrapped up in it. "why should I pay for someone else to be a lazy drug addict? That's MY MONEY!" It's not a solution oriented mindset. Like, they're gonna shoot up on the street where you gotta step over their needles, or in a house away from you. Seems obvious to me, even if it's more expensive. If you're looking for a similar solution to getting the homeless out of sight without "costing tax-payer money," the only one I can think of is murdering the homeless, or maybe shipping them to an island? Obviously, insane. So how do I overcome the pride barrier in these conversations?

chefkoch 8y ago
>Well... They're drinking, shooting up, and having sex right at the bus stop But then you can put them in jail which much even more expensive, but they are punished for being poor.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  Expensive is good, those prison contractors need work you know.
adventured 8y ago
It's an approach that has shown dramatic positive results in the US over the last 20 years. The shelter the homeless programs in the US reduced the homeless population from ~650,000 to ~550,000 today over one decade (2007-2016), despite the great recession occuring during that time (with a massive spike in unemployment and people losing their homes). Unsheltered homelessness, which would be approximately equivalent to rough sleeping in the UK I believe, declined from 255,000 to 176,000 (31%) over that decade. The Federal Government programs under Bush and Obama are solely responsible for the improvement, against a mediocre economic picture during that time. The housing first program under the Bush Admin, and then the various housing programs followed by that during Obama Admin[1]. If we're smart, we'll keep applying more resources that direction. It works [2] and we have overwhelming proof over the last two decades. [1] https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article24585973.html https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/econo... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-astonishing-decline-of-homelessness-in-america/279050/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-ast...

tomglynch 8y ago

The comments is a minefield of American's taking issue to the term 'Rough Sleeping'. Other countries also have sayings that you don't use. It's fine (even beneficial) to learn more about other cultures.

yeutterg 8y ago
Totally agree, I just wanted to point out that a lot of Americans probably wouldn't click on the article in the first place from the headline alone
- DiabloD3 8y ago
  I'm an American and clicked on it in hopes I'd figure out what that meant. In the end, I had to come to the HN comments because I wasn't 100% sure they meant the homeless; since this is the BBC, and I've seen enough British TV, I know the British themselves use the word homeless. Maybe this is one of those weird misplaced PC-ification of the language things?
  - yeutterg 8y ago
    Same here, I didn't fully grasp the meaning from the article. Despite some of the skeptics' comments here, what I find fascinating is that we have a subject that could include a variety of situations (poor and living on the street, poor and sleeping on someone's couch, middle income and voluntarily choosing not to have a permanent living place), yet we tend to throw it all into the same "homeless" bucket. Another commenter suggested that "unsheltered" is the American equivalent to rough sleeping, and I think that makes a lot of sense, even though I haven't heard it much. Homelessness is obviously an issue in many American cities, and perhaps using more specific definitions could help us understand the issues unique to each group.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    In a Brit context, homeless encompasses both rough sleeping and sofa surfing. There's countless homeless who aren't sleeping rough on the streets but are taking space, unofficially in someone's spare room, or literally on their sofa or floor. How are the two forms of homelessness distinguished in US usage? Rough sleeping is as it suggests: Sleeping outside, sleeping bag in shop doorway, tent, abandoned building, under the railway bridge etc.

dev_dull 8y ago

> Since 2007, their government has built homeless policies on the foundations of the "Housing First" principle. > Put simply, it gives rough sleepers or people who become homeless a stable and permanent home of their own as soon as possible. Sorry to sound cynical, but is this an actual solution? Rather than treating the cause, they are simply spending money to remove the symptom. This type of "fix" can be done with any problem given a deep enough pocket. I have nothing against housing the indigent. I'm just constantly surprised why nobody seems interested in treating the obvious and insidious causes of such problems.

lazyasciiart 8y ago
You sound both cynical and uninformed. Plenty of organizations have found that treating the obvious causes is far easier when people are in a house, and it is rapidly becoming recognized even in America as the cheapest and most effective way to reduce homelessness. http://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/housing-first-fact-sheet.pdf http://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/housin...
Robotbeat 8y ago
In a vicious cycle, an effect is also a cause, so treating the symptom can go a long way toward fixing the fundamental problem. Homelessness quickly becomes the cause of the problems as well as the result. Tough to get a job without an address, without a job, no lease. Poor sleep and no place to shower, even harder to get any kind of job. Add in an arrest history due to homelessness and jobs are harder still. And around the circle it goes.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
The lack of housing may in fact be a 'cause'. Once you have a 'safe space' of stability, you might be able to start to work on those other problems. 'No home' is an impossible place from which to make any progress at all. There is definitely an issue with 'tragedy of the commons' etc. but there's also no doubt in my mind the 'home first' thing works. That said - here in Canada, means tested welfare is enough to pay for rent, food - and basically nothing more. But a considerable number of people in my neighbourhood in Montreal chose 'crack + sleeping rough' over 'flat + food'. Even in the winter. There is 2 feet of snow outside and 1 guy sleeping rough less than 100m from where I write this, outside the clinic. Less than 2 blocks away, there are flats for $450/month $CDN, and they are not bad at all. (It's a very mixed neighbourhood). I suggest it's a tricky problem and that UBI-ish solutions might not work here, and that it probably needs to be a 'programme' i.e. combined with social workers, monitoring etc..

8bitsrule 8y ago

Imagine how much would have to be missing for you to get into that position. No money, no address, no phone, no bathroom, no place to stay, no regular meals, living outdoors and exposed, carrying everything you own around. What asylum could possibly give you a chance to rebuild? And here it turns out that what home-less people need most is a home.

softgrow 8y ago

Slightly tangential there is a 2002 Finnish comedy-drama film about a man who becomes homeless and then the dangers of sleeping rough in Helsinki (freeze to death) and so on. I enjoyed it in the cinema, it won awards at Cannes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past (Finnish:Mies vailla menneisyyttä)

lwhi 8y ago

I was in Helsinki last year at a music festival with a friend. The number of people begging for drinks cans and plastic bottles (to sell for recycling) was huge. Definitely in the hundreds. Sometimes we were asked to hurry up drinking, so the can / bottle could be taken. We also saw many people scour parks for recycling. I can't comment on the issue of homelessness, but I can comment on the huge disparity of wealth between the citizens of Helsinki. On one hand the fact that recycling was being taken care of felt admirable. But the creation of an economic underclass felt a bit obscene.

container 8y ago
Though they may be located in Helsinki, I think the people doing that sort of stuff usually don't have citizenship.
- lwhi 8y ago
  True, I wonder if they are even included in the statistics?
  - container 8y ago
    It doesn't seem that they are. And as for the claim in the article that "no-one is begging", anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes in Helsinki knows that's not true. Most of the people begging might have come from abroad, but they're there. And when it comes to the statistics, I found this reference: "In addition to the homelessness visible in statistics, the existence of undocumented migrants is a phenomenon connected to homelessness. An undocumented migrant is a person, who does not have a legal right of residence and whose residence in Finland is not known to or permitted by the authorities. Different estimates by experts on the number of undocumented migrants in Finland vary between 500 and 3,000 people [...]" (PDF report downloaded from https://tinyurl.com/ycybdjtc https://tinyurl.com/ycybdjtc) Edit: Additionally, EU citizens may legally stay in Finland for months, are many are known to do so, even if they can unfortunately only make a living panhandling

cafard 8y ago

"HDI has a total of 403 apartments in Helsinki and the neighbouring city of Espoo." Wikipedia says that the city has a population of about 643 thousand, so there is one apartment per 1600 of population. San Francisco should then provide around 550 apartments. What sort of dent does that make in the San Francisco homeless problem? The BBC article mentions housing the formerly homeless with families and friends, and I have to think this makes up a pretty large part of the housing. It seems to me that this must require a degree of something in between persuasion and coercion.