24 ms·

Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

294 points by ashergill 6y ago

ashergill 6y ago
paywall link: https://outline.com/JV4xXe https://outline.com/JV4xXe edit: no longer working, apologies.
- agilob 6y ago
  The link doesn't work, it just shows "None."
- jchw 6y ago
  https://archive.is/viQQG https://archive.is/viQQG
jswizzy 6y ago
Anyone who thinks that just giving the homeless shelter fixes the problem doesn't understand the problem to begin with.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  The evidence, from Utah (Salt Lake City also attempted and was somewhat successful with Housing First) to Finland says otherwise. Housing the homeless is cheaper and gets them stability to address the core issues (addiction, job placement, etc) with social services (which is incredibly difficult when folks are transient and sleeping rough). With that said: > Meanwhile, illegal immigration creates a homeless population many countries are unwilling to house. That is sabotaging the shift to housing first. You can't house everyone who comes to your country with no means to support themselves. Resources are finite.
  - lostcolony 6y ago
    That same issue applies to different states. It always makes me roll my eyes when conservative pundits point to blue states' homelessness as a reason why socially liberal policies fail; no, but social policies will attract people needing them from anywhere accessible that doesn't have those policies. Hence why it needs to be done at a national level.
  - Eridrus 6y ago
    Not to say the general approach is bad, but I think the cost side is overplayed. It depends a lot on what the cost/structure of your existing response is, and critically, whether you can actually realize any savings after the shift. Both because it is hard to reduce staffing/infrastructure, but also because many costs are not actually born directly by the city (eg medical costs are born by the hospitals).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - cheph 6y ago
      > Not to say the general approach is bad, but I think the cost side is overplayed. Not sure why I, as an immigrant to Europe myself, should pay cover the cost for illegal aliens while I cannot provide properly for my own relatives in my home country. It is unconscionable.
      - Eridrus 6y ago
        We live in an imperfect world with many constraints and trade-offs. Why did you have to emigrate, while others were already born into lucky countries? Why are some people denied the right to emigrate? Life is various shades of unfair and we're more likely to make a better world if we optimize for well being rather than fairness (of which there are multiple competing and contradictory definitions).
        cheph 6y ago
        > Why did you have to emigrate, while others were already born into lucky countries? A lot of people worked very hard to make the place I immigrated from the place it is today, most of them are still there. No luck about it. > Why are some people denied the right to emigrate? As far as I know all EU countries give everyone equal rights to immigrate. Maybe you should check your facts. > Life is various shades of unfair and we're more likely to make a better world if we optimize for well being rather than fairness How exactly is it optimizing for well being to ignore the corruption, injustice and bad governance in Africa? Europeans should open their eyes, the world is collapsing around them while they sign treaties with China which is actively destroying Africa while committing genocide in their own country - and Europe does not care. Russia is busy oppressing their own people and it's neighbors while Germany is building a pipeline to them. This behaviour of Europe is pathetic cowardice, grow a backbone. Spending my tax money on illegal immigrants does not make the world fairer.
- fredgrott 6y ago
  it's 3 areas: -income inequality -low cost housing supplies -mental health -job inequality Finland seems to be tackling some of the others in some fashion via their approach to democratic socialism government initiatives.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  No, but it's almost impossible to get out of homelessness without it. It's really hard to do anything more with your day if you have to spend most of it making sure you have enough calories and a "safe" place to sleep. This doesn't fix everything, but there is a not-as-small-as-you-might-think subset of people for whom the only reason they continue to be homeless is they can't do anything other than figure out what they're gonna eat that day
  - giantg2 6y ago
    "for whom the only reason they continue to be homeless is they can't do anything other than figure out what they're gonna eat that day" I'm not sure I believe this. Why did they become homeless in first place? With most there is an underlying issue. It might be that they are a felon, addict, or other medical issue. It's not that hard to ask for a job while also asking for money or food. Especially if you're already going to food establishment dumpster or begging outside of them. The person I know the best who homeless had a combination of issues. He was in a coma and lost his job. He was also required to pay child support and the bank account ran dry during that time. A warrant was issued and he was arrested. You can't find any "good" jobs with a record and warrants being issued. He basically gave up on the system and finds it easier to just let family support him.
    - jedimastert 6y ago
      > Why did they become homeless in first place? I think you are vastly underestimating how easy it is to go from poor to homeless. There was a ~3 year period of my life where all it would have taken is one bad month. Just one. And it wasn't for lack of trying, or because of laziness or mental illness. Just real bad luck and starting out in a not-great place within a not-great system. Homelessness is a hole that is easy to fall into and damn hard to crawl out of, and not to be insensitive but the assumptions you're making are part of the problem. When you assume that homelessness is fundamentally caused by a fault in the person, that person is basically dammed to stay homeless. The things you say here are the same reasons people give to not hire a homeless person. "They must either be crazy or lazy, neither of which is an employee I want". That's not to mention the fact that there are a surprising number of homeless people that do have jobs, but just don't make enough money to save up to get anything better (which, yes, is a failing of the system). Most people don't realize this if they haven't lived it, but being poor is very expensive. > He basically gave up on the system and finds it easier to just let family support him. Some people don't have a family that could support another person.
- devoutsalsa 6y ago
  There are a lot of reasons to be homeless and not want to stay in a homeless shelter. A big one is security. When I was homeless and learning to code, I couldn’t afford to replace my laptop. People told me that if I stayed in a homeless shelter, there was a good chance my laptop would be stolen. I chose not to stay in one for that reason alone. A few years later, I offered to let a homeless coding student stay with me for a couple weeks while she got housing lined up. She didn’t have one of her own, so I gave her my old MacBook Air. She made arrangements to stay in a shelter, left my place, and her laptop was stolen within a week. Safety & security matter, and any solution that is going to effectively address homelessness needs to take this into account.
- dbattaglia 6y ago
  That's kind of a strong statement to make without some explanation. I'm curious, what is the core of the problem you are referencing that free shelter doesn't "fix"? Mental health, addiction, something else entirely?
- throwaway2a02 6y ago
  Could you be a bit more specific? People end up homeless because they are cut from society, have no social support to fall back to, no way of supporting themselves. Most commonly they get to that situation due to mental illness and addiction/substance abuse is an ever-present comorbidity with that. But the fact is, not having a shelter, running water, a way to cover their basic needs is what amplifies their suffering and dispairs to level where they simply can't get back on their feet. They can't get a job if you smell, your clothes are dirty and you're desperate and hungry. A shelter is a necessary condition I think for getting out of that cycle, and thus a very important first step.
- exDM69 6y ago
  The model used in Finland is anything but "just giving the homeless a shelter". It's accompanied by a lot of social work, together with medical, mental and substance abuse care. The reason for providing housing (not just a shelter, although those exist too) is that social work and care are ineffective when a person is homeless. When someone spends all their energy on staying warm, clean, safe and fed, they are unable to help themselves to a better life. Providing housing was found to be more effective than adding the same amount of funding to social and medical programs. Extensive research has been done with this, I'm sure you can find some in English language too if you find the article too hard to believe.
- ashcza 6y ago
  I highly recommend listening to 99 Percent Invisible’s new 5 part series on homelessness in America. Saying shelter doesn’t fix the problem is misleading, as it is typically a required component to solving other issues that person is facing. https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ https://99percentinvisible.org/need/
- porb121 6y ago
  There is outstanding evidence that giving the homeless shelter does in fact fix the problem. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqKqPkil/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqK...
- imtringued 6y ago
  If you give homeless people a home they aren't homeless anymore. Just in deep poverty which is a completely different type of problem.
Cloudef 6y ago
Note that the "homeless" people in Finland are mainly people who refuse to accept support from the social welfare, this is because they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and rent. The social welfare eventually suggests a different system for such people: pay the rent for them and give a special card that can be used for anything except alcohol and cigarette. If the people keep refusing that other option, then they went homeless on their own accord and keep spending the welfare on alcohol and living on the streets. Such people are very rare in Finland in reality however, but they do exist. There is also one woman [1] who for whatever reason chooses to live homeless with bunch of luggage. She doesn't drink at all, and keeps moving from town to town with all her luggage, by walking. Here's also a discussion about the Roma beggars you see in Helsinki streets. [2] 1: https://shl.fi/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_2935.jpg https://shl.fi/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_2935.jpg 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/79mqjs/question_about_beggars_in_finland/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/79mqjs/question_ab... While giving people who can't afford the food or housing, the food and housing mainly has upsides. It also has problem of artificially inflating housing and rent prices. Especially in the capital where most career opportunities are. (Helsinki is very expensive place to live)
- Delk 6y ago
  While there's truth to that, it's worth noting that most of those homeless people are suffering from ill mental health and/or substance dependence. You make it sound like they just shrugged and decided that that's the life they want, but I don't think that's how people end up homeless. There are decisions involved, but they're probably not quite as voluntary as that.
  - Cloudef 6y ago
    Those people are given help, but if they refuse that, there's nothing you can really do. People are only forced if they start being dangerous to other people.
    - Delk 6y ago
      I'm not saying you can necessarily do anything; in some cases you can't. I'm just saying that things might not be under those people's voluntary control and decision-making either once mental health issues or substance abuse problems go far enough.
austincheney 6y ago
The city of Austin, TX could be a case study of what not to do. I was remotely employed to company with offices in Austin in 2014-2015 and it was awesome to visit and walk around down town. I always had a blast. I visited Austin in 2019 and there were homeless people EVERYWHERE. Every green space and nearly every street corner seemed to be littered with homeless people. The difference crystal clear. Something in the handling of the homeless problem had failed in that city.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  > Something in the handling of the homeless problem had failed in that city. Or, the homeless are recent migrants from other areas? At least where i live, the homeless all congregate in biggest wealthiest cities, because it's easier to beg, their presence blends in more and also local communities are more atomized so they don't fight off the homeless as hard as in smaller places. I've heard a story of one homeless guy who have recently been sleeping on a bus stop near my home - he's basically travelling from one big city center to another, and stays as long as the police doesn't chase him off the area.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    Not only do they tend to select larger cities, but also warmer cities. You mostly hear about the homeless population in places like San Francisco, Oahu, Austin, etc. If you're homeless, you might as well go to a place where you're less likely to freeze to death. Although there are some homeless in places likes Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, etc. Not to mention some cities will give them money if they take a bus to another city. Just shuffle the people around so it's no longer that current city's problem.
    - a3n 6y ago
      > Not only do they tend to select larger cities, but also warmer cities. As a trucker, my view is mostly from the interstate. The most homeless I see in my travels all over the country is I-5 in California, Oregon and Washington, and CA 99. It's pretty cold in Washington and Oregon right now. Even California at night. Tents, tarps, sleeping bags, on both sides of the freeway fence, or inside interchange cloverleafs. Not judging their condition or their person, I don't know them. It looks pretty rough.
adaisadais 6y ago
Homelessness does not beget homelessness. It is most important to note that. Our society is so focused at solving the primary symptoms without ever diving deeper into the root cause of things like this (looking at you Sf). To experience homelessness one must have first experienced a reason to now be homeless. In modern western society we have many failsafes that prevent people from becoming totally dislodged from a place of shelter. But more and more people are losing such shelter and are ending up on our streets. Why? The answer is often rooted in the human condition. Solving that is almost impossible... but it’s worth trying.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  It should be pretty elementary to solve homelessness, as Finland has shown. There's also no reason we can't have full employment. The Soviet Union had it.
  - grumple 6y ago
    The USSR ran enterprises at a loss and kept workers idle though. And then their economy and government collapsed. Not exactly a recipe for success.
  - itake 6y ago
    I’ve lived in LA, SF, and Boulder. Most of the homeless in these cities are not interested in being apart of society. They are perfectly happy with their lifestyle of mental health and drug addictions. Yes, there is a minority of homeless struggling to rejoin society, but the (pardon verbiage) worst people have no interest or empathy for society.
    - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
      You're already coming across as very judgmental of these people. Have you actually talked to them? Do you know why they prefer their lifestyle? I mean you just implied that mental health is a lifestyle or addiction (??? maybe check your phrasing), and that drug addiction is a lifestyle choice instead of e.g. a coping mechanism because society failed them.
crazypython 6y ago
As soon as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903259 was posted, two posts in /new, it helped bring this one, got to the front page: 26. Show HN: Rust-starter, a boilerplate to build Rust CLI applications (github.com/rust-starter) 18 points by csomar 19 minutes ago | flag | hide | past | 6 comments 27. Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing (economist.com) 30 points by ashergill 19 minutes ago | flag | hide | past | 11 comments 28. The Reasons I’m Joining BIGtoken as CEO (medium.com/crypto-oracle) 3 points by simonebrunozzi 19 minutes ago | flag | hide | past | 1 comment 29. Upvote to encourage more people to visit New Links on Hacker News (ycombinator.com) 164 points by crazypython 21 minutes ago | hide | past | 19 comments
reedf1 6y ago
It all comes back to a concept as freshman as it gets - Maslow's hierarchy of needs. How are you supposed to get out of any societal freefall without shelter?
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Exactly so. I mean there's plenty of people that are not homeless but because of poverty can't get to the next tier of said hierarchy.
- devoutsalsa 6y ago
  One of the hardest things for me when I was in financial free fall was how little my friends could understand or help. They didn't understand that I literally had no where to go, and that me asking for a place to crash wasn't me simply wanting to visit at the last minute. My friends also weren't rich, so even if I could have stayed with them, it's not like they had a spare bedroom or guest cottage in which I could stay for a while. Oddly enough, the people who did let me stay with them were folks that were themselves nearly broke and/or recently homeless, all of whom I had only recently met. They understood that if I was asking them for a place to crash, that I really needed a place to stay. The kindness of strangers really saved my butt in 2009.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    No one I knew could provide a bed. I lived in my car. I was eventually able to trade remodel work for a chance to stay in the house. That worked until a sibling & friend of mine, both w/ drinking problems, became regular, disruptive visitors and wouldn't leave. It was back to the car again. I eventually escaped homelessness the same way everyone does. With help.
u678u 6y ago
In areas of the USA with the population density of Finland there isn't much (any?) homelessness either.
- naavis 6y ago
  It doesn't make much sense to look at the average population density of Finland. Homeless people don't really roam the empty countryside, they are in the cities, probably much like in the US too.
- hedberg10 6y ago
  In areas of the USA with the average temperatures of Finland there isn't much (any?) homelessness either.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  And your point is...? I mean I guess culling the population to make the price of housing drop is one solution, but it's a bit strong don't you think?
  - u678u 6y ago
    The point is its easy to fix homelessness when land is cheap and building materials are cheap. It doesn't really help our problems in big American cities.
nabla9 6y ago
Related news: European Court of Human Rights just made important ruling that decriminalizes begging. Making it criminal to be poor is against human rights. ----- ECHR 021 (2021) 19.01.2021 (Judgment Lacatus v. Switzerland) The penalty imposed on the applicant for begging in public breached the Convention In today’s Chamber judgment 1 in the case of Lăcătuşv. Switzerland (application no. 14065/15) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life)of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerned an order for the applicant to pay a fine of 500 Swiss francs (CHF) (approximately 464 euros (EUR)) for begging in public in Geneva, and her detention in a remand prison for five days for failure to pay the fine. The Court observed that the applicant, who was illiterate and came from an extremely poor family, had no work and was not in receipt of social benefits. Begging constituted a means of survival for her. Being in a clearly vulnerable situation, the applicant had had the right, inherent in human dignity, to be able to convey her plight and attempt to meet her basic needs by begging. The Court considered that the penalty imposed on the applicant had not been proportionate either to the aim of combating organised crime or to the aim of protecting the rights of passers-by, residents and shopkeepers. The Court did not subscribe to the Federal Court’s argument that less restrictive measures would not have achieved a comparable result.In the Court’s view, the penalty imposed had infringed the applicant’s human dignity and impaired the very essence of the rights protected by Article 8 of the Convention, and the State had thus overstepped its margin of appreciation in the present case.
- oblio 6y ago
  This means that anti-panhandling/anti-begging laws will become void soon in several countries. This could lead to some interesting results if it's true that some branches of organized crime use organized begging.
  - nabla9 6y ago
    Yes. This is very exiting. The ruling creates real incentives to attack real problems, instead of brushing them out of sight.
ur-whale 6y ago
https://archive.is/viQQG https://archive.is/viQQG
sevenf0ur 6y ago
Why is France taking in more migrants than it can support? It seems cruel to have your migrants homeless and living on the streets.
Joeri 6y ago
Housing first is an approach conceived in the U.S. but for political reasons not as widely adopted as it should be. 99pi did a fascinating podcast series about the homelessness problem in oakland and how housing first fits into the picture. My preconceived notions of why people are homeless were definitely upended. https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ https://99percentinvisible.org/need/
- shuckles 6y ago
  Santa Clara County recently did a random assignment intervention to offer chronically homeless people free housing. There was no measurable difference in health outcomes (in fact, those provided housing died at higher rates). I am not convinced the housing first is as great as its proponents claim it is, though it does have an intuitive appeal (by definition, it’s the solution to homelessness! But what if homelessness is a symptom, not the disease?).
  - kansface 6y ago
    Indeed, overdoses in SF are way up, at least partially due to putting the homeless in empty hotels.
usr1106 6y ago
Well, there are fewer homeless in Finnish cities than in many other European big cities. Note that there are only 5 cities in Finland that are big enough for homeless people. I don't think homeless people live in small towns anywhere in Europe. On the other hand a Finnish newspaper wrote just yesterday[1] that the amount of street children (teenagers mostly) is increasing all the time and nobody really cares. The phenomenon goes mostly unreported, because according to the law it's impossible to happen. Authorities would be obliged to take care, in reality they are incapable. Mostly understaffed and to some degree also incompetent. [1] Don't remember which one, read 3 of them.
- eulenteufel 6y ago
  I come from a German town with ~25.000 People, far away from any major city and there definitely are homeless people. It's not a lot in comparison to big cities like Berlin, but they do exist.
agumonkey 6y ago
Anybody know about initiatives to build cabins instead of letting people sleep in the cold ?
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
It is probably much harder being homeless in Finland than in San Francisco just from the weather. San Francisco is relatively mild, even in winter. Finland in winter gets pretty cold, and people are in severe danger of death or loss of body parts from frostbite.
asdff 6y ago
Finland has 5.5M people and about 5 thousand homeless. Los Angeles county has 10.5M people and estimates are nearing 100,000 homeless. The situation is an order of magnitude different in Los Angeles, even by West Coast standards, and what works in Findland is unlikely to scale anywhere else, much less a place like the U.S. which has the bare minimum of a social safety net compared to the rest of the developed world.
- anewaccount2021 6y ago
  Homeless in LA also won't freeze to death if they sleep outside in January.
- porb121 6y ago
  what works in Finland (giving people housing) definitely works in Los Angeles - LA was the subject of a recent research paper demonstrating the massive success of such a program https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqKqPkil/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqK...
  - asdff 6y ago
    Giving people housing helps those homeless who have the wherewithal to go forth and build a life from that point. That population of homeless are rarely chronically homeless. The most visible source of homeless, the chronically homeless population accounting for the most deaths, the most crime, the most in need of resources, are the drug addicted and mentally ill. The solution is not to create more sober housing that will be turned down by addicts or people who aren't in the right state of mind who believe they really do have a better life living on the sidewalk. The solution is to create mental health facilities and drug treatment centers, and to remove people off the street by offering a choice of going to seek treatment at one of these places, or jail. Living in subhuman conditions on the street shouldn't even be an option It's embarrassing to me that LA county is putting up port a potties underneath freeway overpasses and patting themselves on the back for their "lofty" goal of 10,000 shelter units in 10 years, when they should instead be building hospitals and long term psychiatric wards if money were to actually be spent on doing the most good towards the people impacted by this public health crisis on our sidewalks.
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/viQQG https://archive.is/viQQG
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
I'm in the US. I was homeless as a teenager (not by choice). I live adjacent to a major homeless community (not by design). My ex left our family to join the homeless community (she struggles with mh issues). I have some observations. We could sharply reduce homeless numbers here if we had in-patient mental health facilities (for non-wealthy), comprehensive housing aid and politically powerful job placement programs. I just looked up our jail budget and inmate population; we pay ~$25k/inmate/year (excluding court & police costs). That money gets us a pretty solid guarantee that arrested mentally ill people will reoffend, given how many entrenched systems there are to make sure that convicted people are locked out of most jobs and housing.
- e40 6y ago
  In-patient services for mental health were decimated in the 80's. Reagan cut the funding and cities were flooded with homeless + mentally ill people. I was at UC Berkeley at the time this happened. There were so many seriously mentally ill folks on the street. It was sad.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    It worked out great for Republicans. The spike in crime rates made their "tough on crime" message resonate. When you're homeless and mentally ill it's basically guaranteed that you're going to have fights with the police.
    - HNfriend234 6y ago
      Tough on crime isn't purely a republican stance though. Democrats worked hand-in-hand with republicans in the late 1980s to push through many tough on crime policies. This was due to crime skyrocketing in the 1980s due to cheap and abundant crack cocaine flooding America's streets.
      - r00fus 6y ago
        If you replace Republican with Conservative it works. Hell, our current President is debt-hating Conservative if you view it by the bills he's authored/supported as Senator in the past 30 years.
w_t_payne 6y ago
The truth is that human beings need a huge amount of investment - time, money and love - to get us to the point where we can function effectively - and once we fall off the train, it can be nearly impossible to climb back on again. Human misery is a systems problem. Perhaps the most productive way of tackling it will be to bolster and expand the mechanisms which enable people to avoid poverty and homelessness. E.g. helping a recently-redundant person quickly find another job, or giving someone at risk of becoming homeless another three or four months of breathing room so they have a chance to turn things around. It's not just about financial support, either. Social, emotional and psychological support is essential, as it's so incredibly hard to keep a clear head when you are in distress.
chrisgd 6y ago
It’s too cold so everyone figured out another solution?
thepasswordis 6y ago
1) Drugs are bad. The mushrooms you do at burning man every summer do not make you an expert on the effects of meth and heroin on people who are living under a bridge. 2) Placation will make it worse. Living under a bridge near other homeless people is the problem. Efforts to decriminalize "the unhoused" make the problem worse. Look at Portland, SF, Austin, and ever other city that tries this. It gets worse EVERY TIME. STOP DOING THIS. To solve the problem: 1) Hold humans to a high standard. No, you can't live in the park. That isn't an option. No you can't do drugs. No you can't rob the walgreens. No you can't stand in my front yard at 2:00am screaming. Doing these things will result in your spending your time locked in jail. 2) Get a job. Places like Albuquerque have program where anybody can show up in the morning and get work doing things like cleaning the parks, cleaning the sidewalks, picking up trash, etc. This is good. More of this. 3) Our understanding of human psychology does not need "disruption". People who spend their time depressed and doing drugs while living in a ditch are going to develop serious stress related mental health issues. People with structured 9-5 jobs which result in them having a house and food, and something to work towards are universally more mentally healthy. And it isn't the house and the food making them more stable, it's the structure. The efforts to fix this stuff: closing the mental health facilities, letting people sleep in their own filth, letting people commit petty crimes: these things make the problem WORSE. Stop it. This stuff might make you feel good, but it is at the expense of the people you are exploiting for your good feelings. Stop being so selfish and accept that the solution to this problem isn'g going to be happy and fun and worthy of instagram posts.
- swebs 6y ago
  >This stuff might make you feel good, but it is at the expense of the people you are exploiting for your good feelings. Stop being so selfish and accept that the solution to this problem isn'g going to be happy and fun and worthy of instagram posts. I think a lot more people need to hear this.
wombatpm 6y ago
There is also the matter of weather. Finland is cold. When I lived in Minneapolis the number of homeless people was staggeringly small compared to Chicago which was nothing compared to San Francisco. All the jokes about the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco aside, -20 degree temperatures at night (no windchill bs) will force even the craziest of homeless to seek shelter. Eventually they get help of somesort
gfxgirl 6y ago
Lots of random thoughts but no conclusions * How much does the government have to spend per person? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... * What are the government's expenses? From that wikipedia article the USA has 80% of what Finland has per person. But I'm only guessing 50% of that 80% goes to the military (we can argue if that's good or bad. I'm just guessing that most countries get to use more of their $ per person for other things?) * How much does weather play a role? Being homeless in Los Angeles is probably much more doable than Finland? Does this influence the number of people who are homeless? * Does Oil play a role? I think for Finland no? But Norway and Denmark apparently get lots of their budgets from oil. What happens to their social programs as we switch to renewables? (not sure it's relevant to a story about Finland but also not sure if there is some similar way government gets money or not. It does seem relevant to the general stereotype of countries in that area doing well for their citizens. If they've got a free money supply. Of course I'm totally uninformed about any of this.
- username90 6y ago
  All of Scandinavia have similar programs but only Norway have significant oil income. USA has more oil per capita than Denmark so they don't count.
swebs 6y ago
>Still, in a small, wealthy country to which few poor people move, it appears that homelessness is solvable. I think this is the main takeaway of this story.

294 points by ashergill 6y ago

ashergill 6y ago

paywall link: https://outline.com/JV4xXe https://outline.com/JV4xXe edit: no longer working, apologies.

agilob 6y ago
The link doesn't work, it just shows "None."
jchw 6y ago
https://archive.is/viQQG https://archive.is/viQQG

jswizzy 6y ago

Anyone who thinks that just giving the homeless shelter fixes the problem doesn't understand the problem to begin with.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
The evidence, from Utah (Salt Lake City also attempted and was somewhat successful with Housing First) to Finland says otherwise. Housing the homeless is cheaper and gets them stability to address the core issues (addiction, job placement, etc) with social services (which is incredibly difficult when folks are transient and sleeping rough). With that said: > Meanwhile, illegal immigration creates a homeless population many countries are unwilling to house. That is sabotaging the shift to housing first. You can't house everyone who comes to your country with no means to support themselves. Resources are finite.
- lostcolony 6y ago
  That same issue applies to different states. It always makes me roll my eyes when conservative pundits point to blue states' homelessness as a reason why socially liberal policies fail; no, but social policies will attract people needing them from anywhere accessible that doesn't have those policies. Hence why it needs to be done at a national level.
- Eridrus 6y ago
  Not to say the general approach is bad, but I think the cost side is overplayed. It depends a lot on what the cost/structure of your existing response is, and critically, whether you can actually realize any savings after the shift. Both because it is hard to reduce staffing/infrastructure, but also because many costs are not actually born directly by the city (eg medical costs are born by the hospitals).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cheph 6y ago
    > Not to say the general approach is bad, but I think the cost side is overplayed. Not sure why I, as an immigrant to Europe myself, should pay cover the cost for illegal aliens while I cannot provide properly for my own relatives in my home country. It is unconscionable.
    - Eridrus 6y ago
      We live in an imperfect world with many constraints and trade-offs. Why did you have to emigrate, while others were already born into lucky countries? Why are some people denied the right to emigrate? Life is various shades of unfair and we're more likely to make a better world if we optimize for well being rather than fairness (of which there are multiple competing and contradictory definitions).
      - cheph 6y ago
        > Why did you have to emigrate, while others were already born into lucky countries? A lot of people worked very hard to make the place I immigrated from the place it is today, most of them are still there. No luck about it. > Why are some people denied the right to emigrate? As far as I know all EU countries give everyone equal rights to immigrate. Maybe you should check your facts. > Life is various shades of unfair and we're more likely to make a better world if we optimize for well being rather than fairness How exactly is it optimizing for well being to ignore the corruption, injustice and bad governance in Africa? Europeans should open their eyes, the world is collapsing around them while they sign treaties with China which is actively destroying Africa while committing genocide in their own country - and Europe does not care. Russia is busy oppressing their own people and it's neighbors while Germany is building a pipeline to them. This behaviour of Europe is pathetic cowardice, grow a backbone. Spending my tax money on illegal immigrants does not make the world fairer.
fredgrott 6y ago
it's 3 areas: -income inequality -low cost housing supplies -mental health -job inequality Finland seems to be tackling some of the others in some fashion via their approach to democratic socialism government initiatives.
jedimastert 6y ago
No, but it's almost impossible to get out of homelessness without it. It's really hard to do anything more with your day if you have to spend most of it making sure you have enough calories and a "safe" place to sleep. This doesn't fix everything, but there is a not-as-small-as-you-might-think subset of people for whom the only reason they continue to be homeless is they can't do anything other than figure out what they're gonna eat that day
- giantg2 6y ago
  "for whom the only reason they continue to be homeless is they can't do anything other than figure out what they're gonna eat that day" I'm not sure I believe this. Why did they become homeless in first place? With most there is an underlying issue. It might be that they are a felon, addict, or other medical issue. It's not that hard to ask for a job while also asking for money or food. Especially if you're already going to food establishment dumpster or begging outside of them. The person I know the best who homeless had a combination of issues. He was in a coma and lost his job. He was also required to pay child support and the bank account ran dry during that time. A warrant was issued and he was arrested. You can't find any "good" jobs with a record and warrants being issued. He basically gave up on the system and finds it easier to just let family support him.
  - jedimastert 6y ago
    > Why did they become homeless in first place? I think you are vastly underestimating how easy it is to go from poor to homeless. There was a ~3 year period of my life where all it would have taken is one bad month. Just one. And it wasn't for lack of trying, or because of laziness or mental illness. Just real bad luck and starting out in a not-great place within a not-great system. Homelessness is a hole that is easy to fall into and damn hard to crawl out of, and not to be insensitive but the assumptions you're making are part of the problem. When you assume that homelessness is fundamentally caused by a fault in the person, that person is basically dammed to stay homeless. The things you say here are the same reasons people give to not hire a homeless person. "They must either be crazy or lazy, neither of which is an employee I want". That's not to mention the fact that there are a surprising number of homeless people that do have jobs, but just don't make enough money to save up to get anything better (which, yes, is a failing of the system). Most people don't realize this if they haven't lived it, but being poor is very expensive. > He basically gave up on the system and finds it easier to just let family support him. Some people don't have a family that could support another person.
devoutsalsa 6y ago
There are a lot of reasons to be homeless and not want to stay in a homeless shelter. A big one is security. When I was homeless and learning to code, I couldn’t afford to replace my laptop. People told me that if I stayed in a homeless shelter, there was a good chance my laptop would be stolen. I chose not to stay in one for that reason alone. A few years later, I offered to let a homeless coding student stay with me for a couple weeks while she got housing lined up. She didn’t have one of her own, so I gave her my old MacBook Air. She made arrangements to stay in a shelter, left my place, and her laptop was stolen within a week. Safety & security matter, and any solution that is going to effectively address homelessness needs to take this into account.
dbattaglia 6y ago
That's kind of a strong statement to make without some explanation. I'm curious, what is the core of the problem you are referencing that free shelter doesn't "fix"? Mental health, addiction, something else entirely?
throwaway2a02 6y ago
Could you be a bit more specific? People end up homeless because they are cut from society, have no social support to fall back to, no way of supporting themselves. Most commonly they get to that situation due to mental illness and addiction/substance abuse is an ever-present comorbidity with that. But the fact is, not having a shelter, running water, a way to cover their basic needs is what amplifies their suffering and dispairs to level where they simply can't get back on their feet. They can't get a job if you smell, your clothes are dirty and you're desperate and hungry. A shelter is a necessary condition I think for getting out of that cycle, and thus a very important first step.
exDM69 6y ago
The model used in Finland is anything but "just giving the homeless a shelter". It's accompanied by a lot of social work, together with medical, mental and substance abuse care. The reason for providing housing (not just a shelter, although those exist too) is that social work and care are ineffective when a person is homeless. When someone spends all their energy on staying warm, clean, safe and fed, they are unable to help themselves to a better life. Providing housing was found to be more effective than adding the same amount of funding to social and medical programs. Extensive research has been done with this, I'm sure you can find some in English language too if you find the article too hard to believe.
ashcza 6y ago
I highly recommend listening to 99 Percent Invisible’s new 5 part series on homelessness in America. Saying shelter doesn’t fix the problem is misleading, as it is typically a required component to solving other issues that person is facing. https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ https://99percentinvisible.org/need/
porb121 6y ago
There is outstanding evidence that giving the homeless shelter does in fact fix the problem. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqKqPkil/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqK...
imtringued 6y ago
If you give homeless people a home they aren't homeless anymore. Just in deep poverty which is a completely different type of problem.

Cloudef 6y ago

Note that the "homeless" people in Finland are mainly people who refuse to accept support from the social welfare, this is because they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and rent. The social welfare eventually suggests a different system for such people: pay the rent for them and give a special card that can be used for anything except alcohol and cigarette. If the people keep refusing that other option, then they went homeless on their own accord and keep spending the welfare on alcohol and living on the streets. Such people are very rare in Finland in reality however, but they do exist. There is also one woman [1] who for whatever reason chooses to live homeless with bunch of luggage. She doesn't drink at all, and keeps moving from town to town with all her luggage, by walking. Here's also a discussion about the Roma beggars you see in Helsinki streets. [2] 1: https://shl.fi/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_2935.jpg https://shl.fi/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_2935.jpg 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/79mqjs/question_about_beggars_in_finland/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/79mqjs/question_ab... While giving people who can't afford the food or housing, the food and housing mainly has upsides. It also has problem of artificially inflating housing and rent prices. Especially in the capital where most career opportunities are. (Helsinki is very expensive place to live)

Delk 6y ago
While there's truth to that, it's worth noting that most of those homeless people are suffering from ill mental health and/or substance dependence. You make it sound like they just shrugged and decided that that's the life they want, but I don't think that's how people end up homeless. There are decisions involved, but they're probably not quite as voluntary as that.
- Cloudef 6y ago
  Those people are given help, but if they refuse that, there's nothing you can really do. People are only forced if they start being dangerous to other people.
  - Delk 6y ago
    I'm not saying you can necessarily do anything; in some cases you can't. I'm just saying that things might not be under those people's voluntary control and decision-making either once mental health issues or substance abuse problems go far enough.

austincheney 6y ago

The city of Austin, TX could be a case study of what not to do. I was remotely employed to company with offices in Austin in 2014-2015 and it was awesome to visit and walk around down town. I always had a blast. I visited Austin in 2019 and there were homeless people EVERYWHERE. Every green space and nearly every street corner seemed to be littered with homeless people. The difference crystal clear. Something in the handling of the homeless problem had failed in that city.

burntoutfire 6y ago
> Something in the handling of the homeless problem had failed in that city. Or, the homeless are recent migrants from other areas? At least where i live, the homeless all congregate in biggest wealthiest cities, because it's easier to beg, their presence blends in more and also local communities are more atomized so they don't fight off the homeless as hard as in smaller places. I've heard a story of one homeless guy who have recently been sleeping on a bus stop near my home - he's basically travelling from one big city center to another, and stays as long as the police doesn't chase him off the area.
- giantg2 6y ago
  Not only do they tend to select larger cities, but also warmer cities. You mostly hear about the homeless population in places like San Francisco, Oahu, Austin, etc. If you're homeless, you might as well go to a place where you're less likely to freeze to death. Although there are some homeless in places likes Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, etc. Not to mention some cities will give them money if they take a bus to another city. Just shuffle the people around so it's no longer that current city's problem.
  - a3n 6y ago
    > Not only do they tend to select larger cities, but also warmer cities. As a trucker, my view is mostly from the interstate. The most homeless I see in my travels all over the country is I-5 in California, Oregon and Washington, and CA 99. It's pretty cold in Washington and Oregon right now. Even California at night. Tents, tarps, sleeping bags, on both sides of the freeway fence, or inside interchange cloverleafs. Not judging their condition or their person, I don't know them. It looks pretty rough.

adaisadais 6y ago

Homelessness does not beget homelessness. It is most important to note that. Our society is so focused at solving the primary symptoms without ever diving deeper into the root cause of things like this (looking at you Sf). To experience homelessness one must have first experienced a reason to now be homeless. In modern western society we have many failsafes that prevent people from becoming totally dislodged from a place of shelter. But more and more people are losing such shelter and are ending up on our streets. Why? The answer is often rooted in the human condition. Solving that is almost impossible... but it’s worth trying.

Synaesthesia 6y ago
It should be pretty elementary to solve homelessness, as Finland has shown. There's also no reason we can't have full employment. The Soviet Union had it.
- grumple 6y ago
  The USSR ran enterprises at a loss and kept workers idle though. And then their economy and government collapsed. Not exactly a recipe for success.
- itake 6y ago
  I’ve lived in LA, SF, and Boulder. Most of the homeless in these cities are not interested in being apart of society. They are perfectly happy with their lifestyle of mental health and drug addictions. Yes, there is a minority of homeless struggling to rejoin society, but the (pardon verbiage) worst people have no interest or empathy for society.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    You're already coming across as very judgmental of these people. Have you actually talked to them? Do you know why they prefer their lifestyle? I mean you just implied that mental health is a lifestyle or addiction (??? maybe check your phrasing), and that drug addiction is a lifestyle choice instead of e.g. a coping mechanism because society failed them.

crazypython 6y ago

As soon as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903259 was posted, two posts in /new, it helped bring this one, got to the front page: 26. Show HN: Rust-starter, a boilerplate to build Rust CLI applications (github.com/rust-starter) 18 points by csomar 19 minutes ago | flag | hide | past | 6 comments 27. Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing (economist.com) 30 points by ashergill 19 minutes ago | flag | hide | past | 11 comments 28. The Reasons I’m Joining BIGtoken as CEO (medium.com/crypto-oracle) 3 points by simonebrunozzi 19 minutes ago | flag | hide | past | 1 comment 29. Upvote to encourage more people to visit New Links on Hacker News (ycombinator.com) 164 points by crazypython 21 minutes ago | hide | past | 19 comments

reedf1 6y ago

It all comes back to a concept as freshman as it gets - Maslow's hierarchy of needs. How are you supposed to get out of any societal freefall without shelter?

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Exactly so. I mean there's plenty of people that are not homeless but because of poverty can't get to the next tier of said hierarchy.
devoutsalsa 6y ago
One of the hardest things for me when I was in financial free fall was how little my friends could understand or help. They didn't understand that I literally had no where to go, and that me asking for a place to crash wasn't me simply wanting to visit at the last minute. My friends also weren't rich, so even if I could have stayed with them, it's not like they had a spare bedroom or guest cottage in which I could stay for a while. Oddly enough, the people who did let me stay with them were folks that were themselves nearly broke and/or recently homeless, all of whom I had only recently met. They understood that if I was asking them for a place to crash, that I really needed a place to stay. The kindness of strangers really saved my butt in 2009.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  No one I knew could provide a bed. I lived in my car. I was eventually able to trade remodel work for a chance to stay in the house. That worked until a sibling & friend of mine, both w/ drinking problems, became regular, disruptive visitors and wouldn't leave. It was back to the car again. I eventually escaped homelessness the same way everyone does. With help.

u678u 6y ago

In areas of the USA with the population density of Finland there isn't much (any?) homelessness either.

naavis 6y ago
It doesn't make much sense to look at the average population density of Finland. Homeless people don't really roam the empty countryside, they are in the cities, probably much like in the US too.
hedberg10 6y ago
In areas of the USA with the average temperatures of Finland there isn't much (any?) homelessness either.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
And your point is...? I mean I guess culling the population to make the price of housing drop is one solution, but it's a bit strong don't you think?
- u678u 6y ago
  The point is its easy to fix homelessness when land is cheap and building materials are cheap. It doesn't really help our problems in big American cities.

nabla9 6y ago

Related news: European Court of Human Rights just made important ruling that decriminalizes begging. Making it criminal to be poor is against human rights. ----- ECHR 021 (2021) 19.01.2021 (Judgment Lacatus v. Switzerland) The penalty imposed on the applicant for begging in public breached the Convention In today’s Chamber judgment 1 in the case of Lăcătuşv. Switzerland (application no. 14065/15) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life)of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerned an order for the applicant to pay a fine of 500 Swiss francs (CHF) (approximately 464 euros (EUR)) for begging in public in Geneva, and her detention in a remand prison for five days for failure to pay the fine. The Court observed that the applicant, who was illiterate and came from an extremely poor family, had no work and was not in receipt of social benefits. Begging constituted a means of survival for her. Being in a clearly vulnerable situation, the applicant had had the right, inherent in human dignity, to be able to convey her plight and attempt to meet her basic needs by begging. The Court considered that the penalty imposed on the applicant had not been proportionate either to the aim of combating organised crime or to the aim of protecting the rights of passers-by, residents and shopkeepers. The Court did not subscribe to the Federal Court’s argument that less restrictive measures would not have achieved a comparable result.In the Court’s view, the penalty imposed had infringed the applicant’s human dignity and impaired the very essence of the rights protected by Article 8 of the Convention, and the State had thus overstepped its margin of appreciation in the present case.

oblio 6y ago
This means that anti-panhandling/anti-begging laws will become void soon in several countries. This could lead to some interesting results if it's true that some branches of organized crime use organized begging.
- nabla9 6y ago
  Yes. This is very exiting. The ruling creates real incentives to attack real problems, instead of brushing them out of sight.

ur-whale 6y ago

https://archive.is/viQQG https://archive.is/viQQG

sevenf0ur 6y ago

Why is France taking in more migrants than it can support? It seems cruel to have your migrants homeless and living on the streets.

Joeri 6y ago

Housing first is an approach conceived in the U.S. but for political reasons not as widely adopted as it should be. 99pi did a fascinating podcast series about the homelessness problem in oakland and how housing first fits into the picture. My preconceived notions of why people are homeless were definitely upended. https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ https://99percentinvisible.org/need/

shuckles 6y ago
Santa Clara County recently did a random assignment intervention to offer chronically homeless people free housing. There was no measurable difference in health outcomes (in fact, those provided housing died at higher rates). I am not convinced the housing first is as great as its proponents claim it is, though it does have an intuitive appeal (by definition, it’s the solution to homelessness! But what if homelessness is a symptom, not the disease?).
- kansface 6y ago
  Indeed, overdoses in SF are way up, at least partially due to putting the homeless in empty hotels.

usr1106 6y ago

Well, there are fewer homeless in Finnish cities than in many other European big cities. Note that there are only 5 cities in Finland that are big enough for homeless people. I don't think homeless people live in small towns anywhere in Europe. On the other hand a Finnish newspaper wrote just yesterday[1] that the amount of street children (teenagers mostly) is increasing all the time and nobody really cares. The phenomenon goes mostly unreported, because according to the law it's impossible to happen. Authorities would be obliged to take care, in reality they are incapable. Mostly understaffed and to some degree also incompetent. [1] Don't remember which one, read 3 of them.

eulenteufel 6y ago
I come from a German town with ~25.000 People, far away from any major city and there definitely are homeless people. It's not a lot in comparison to big cities like Berlin, but they do exist.

agumonkey 6y ago

Anybody know about initiatives to build cabins instead of letting people sleep in the cold ?

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

It is probably much harder being homeless in Finland than in San Francisco just from the weather. San Francisco is relatively mild, even in winter. Finland in winter gets pretty cold, and people are in severe danger of death or loss of body parts from frostbite.

asdff 6y ago

Finland has 5.5M people and about 5 thousand homeless. Los Angeles county has 10.5M people and estimates are nearing 100,000 homeless. The situation is an order of magnitude different in Los Angeles, even by West Coast standards, and what works in Findland is unlikely to scale anywhere else, much less a place like the U.S. which has the bare minimum of a social safety net compared to the rest of the developed world.

anewaccount2021 6y ago
Homeless in LA also won't freeze to death if they sleep outside in January.
porb121 6y ago
what works in Finland (giving people housing) definitely works in Los Angeles - LA was the subject of a recent research paper demonstrating the massive success of such a program https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqKqPkil/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqK...
- asdff 6y ago
  Giving people housing helps those homeless who have the wherewithal to go forth and build a life from that point. That population of homeless are rarely chronically homeless. The most visible source of homeless, the chronically homeless population accounting for the most deaths, the most crime, the most in need of resources, are the drug addicted and mentally ill. The solution is not to create more sober housing that will be turned down by addicts or people who aren't in the right state of mind who believe they really do have a better life living on the sidewalk. The solution is to create mental health facilities and drug treatment centers, and to remove people off the street by offering a choice of going to seek treatment at one of these places, or jail. Living in subhuman conditions on the street shouldn't even be an option It's embarrassing to me that LA county is putting up port a potties underneath freeway overpasses and patting themselves on the back for their "lofty" goal of 10,000 shelter units in 10 years, when they should instead be building hospitals and long term psychiatric wards if money were to actually be spent on doing the most good towards the people impacted by this public health crisis on our sidewalks.

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/viQQG https://archive.is/viQQG

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

I'm in the US. I was homeless as a teenager (not by choice). I live adjacent to a major homeless community (not by design). My ex left our family to join the homeless community (she struggles with mh issues). I have some observations. We could sharply reduce homeless numbers here if we had in-patient mental health facilities (for non-wealthy), comprehensive housing aid and politically powerful job placement programs. I just looked up our jail budget and inmate population; we pay ~$25k/inmate/year (excluding court & police costs). That money gets us a pretty solid guarantee that arrested mentally ill people will reoffend, given how many entrenched systems there are to make sure that convicted people are locked out of most jobs and housing.

e40 6y ago
In-patient services for mental health were decimated in the 80's. Reagan cut the funding and cities were flooded with homeless + mentally ill people. I was at UC Berkeley at the time this happened. There were so many seriously mentally ill folks on the street. It was sad.
- jandrese 6y ago
  It worked out great for Republicans. The spike in crime rates made their "tough on crime" message resonate. When you're homeless and mentally ill it's basically guaranteed that you're going to have fights with the police.
  - HNfriend234 6y ago
    Tough on crime isn't purely a republican stance though. Democrats worked hand-in-hand with republicans in the late 1980s to push through many tough on crime policies. This was due to crime skyrocketing in the 1980s due to cheap and abundant crack cocaine flooding America's streets.
    - r00fus 6y ago
      If you replace Republican with Conservative it works. Hell, our current President is debt-hating Conservative if you view it by the bills he's authored/supported as Senator in the past 30 years.

w_t_payne 6y ago

The truth is that human beings need a huge amount of investment - time, money and love - to get us to the point where we can function effectively - and once we fall off the train, it can be nearly impossible to climb back on again. Human misery is a systems problem. Perhaps the most productive way of tackling it will be to bolster and expand the mechanisms which enable people to avoid poverty and homelessness. E.g. helping a recently-redundant person quickly find another job, or giving someone at risk of becoming homeless another three or four months of breathing room so they have a chance to turn things around. It's not just about financial support, either. Social, emotional and psychological support is essential, as it's so incredibly hard to keep a clear head when you are in distress.

chrisgd 6y ago

It’s too cold so everyone figured out another solution?

thepasswordis 6y ago

1) Drugs are bad. The mushrooms you do at burning man every summer do not make you an expert on the effects of meth and heroin on people who are living under a bridge. 2) Placation will make it worse. Living under a bridge near other homeless people is the problem. Efforts to decriminalize "the unhoused" make the problem worse. Look at Portland, SF, Austin, and ever other city that tries this. It gets worse EVERY TIME. STOP DOING THIS. To solve the problem: 1) Hold humans to a high standard. No, you can't live in the park. That isn't an option. No you can't do drugs. No you can't rob the walgreens. No you can't stand in my front yard at 2:00am screaming. Doing these things will result in your spending your time locked in jail. 2) Get a job. Places like Albuquerque have program where anybody can show up in the morning and get work doing things like cleaning the parks, cleaning the sidewalks, picking up trash, etc. This is good. More of this. 3) Our understanding of human psychology does not need "disruption". People who spend their time depressed and doing drugs while living in a ditch are going to develop serious stress related mental health issues. People with structured 9-5 jobs which result in them having a house and food, and something to work towards are universally more mentally healthy. And it isn't the house and the food making them more stable, it's the structure. The efforts to fix this stuff: closing the mental health facilities, letting people sleep in their own filth, letting people commit petty crimes: these things make the problem WORSE. Stop it. This stuff might make you feel good, but it is at the expense of the people you are exploiting for your good feelings. Stop being so selfish and accept that the solution to this problem isn'g going to be happy and fun and worthy of instagram posts.

swebs 6y ago
>This stuff might make you feel good, but it is at the expense of the people you are exploiting for your good feelings. Stop being so selfish and accept that the solution to this problem isn'g going to be happy and fun and worthy of instagram posts. I think a lot more people need to hear this.

wombatpm 6y ago

There is also the matter of weather. Finland is cold. When I lived in Minneapolis the number of homeless people was staggeringly small compared to Chicago which was nothing compared to San Francisco. All the jokes about the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco aside, -20 degree temperatures at night (no windchill bs) will force even the craziest of homeless to seek shelter. Eventually they get help of somesort

gfxgirl 6y ago

Lots of random thoughts but no conclusions * How much does the government have to spend per person? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... * What are the government's expenses? From that wikipedia article the USA has 80% of what Finland has per person. But I'm only guessing 50% of that 80% goes to the military (we can argue if that's good or bad. I'm just guessing that most countries get to use more of their $ per person for other things?) * How much does weather play a role? Being homeless in Los Angeles is probably much more doable than Finland? Does this influence the number of people who are homeless? * Does Oil play a role? I think for Finland no? But Norway and Denmark apparently get lots of their budgets from oil. What happens to their social programs as we switch to renewables? (not sure it's relevant to a story about Finland but also not sure if there is some similar way government gets money or not. It does seem relevant to the general stereotype of countries in that area doing well for their citizens. If they've got a free money supply. Of course I'm totally uninformed about any of this.

username90 6y ago
All of Scandinavia have similar programs but only Norway have significant oil income. USA has more oil per capita than Denmark so they don't count.

swebs 6y ago

>Still, in a small, wealthy country to which few poor people move, it appears that homelessness is solvable. I think this is the main takeaway of this story.