33 ms·

Finland provides housing and counseling to the homeless (2020)

354 points by mpweiher 5y ago

lmilcin 5y ago
I always wonder what is the point of progress if we can't use it to solve basic problems like people not having food, shelter or access to basic medical help.
- hereforphone 5y ago
  It's almost like the problem's harder than it seems at first glance or something
  - jeffrallen 5y ago
    The first job is buy-in. When a society collectively chooses to solve some difficult problem, it gets solved, no matter how hard it is. Apollo program or homelessness.
    - orzig 5y ago
      Or cancer! Oh oops
      - jeffrallen 5y ago
        5-year survival rates have improved — for some cancers — in adolescents and young adults https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/5-year-survival-rates-have-improved-for-some-cancers-in-adolescents-and-young-adults/ https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/5-year-survival-rates-have-impr...
      - ben_w 5y ago
        Cancer is many things rather than one, and some of those things have been solved.
        FeepingCreature 5y ago
        So's homelessness.
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        Cancer is a hugely complex problem. It is not a single attack vector like a virus. But we are still making great progress on it, just think that the best vaccines for Covid came as fruit of cancer research.
    - bradleyjg 5y ago
      It depends on the kind of problem. An engineering challenge, even a really difficult one, is something that can be attacked with effort. Changing human beings is far far more difficult. Perhaps impossible on timescales less than generations. We’ve had societies that really wanted to stop people from using mind altering substances, agree with that goal or not it was something that multiple societies choose to try to solve and mostly they failed. The ones that partly succeeded were the ones that used heinously brutal methods.
    - tedunangst 5y ago
      When was the last time somebody stepped on the moon? If that's success criteria, we just need to stick all the homeless in a hotel for a night, declare the problem solved, then kick them out in the morning.
    - patrec 5y ago
      Back in reality, the majority of society was opposed to the Apollo program (even after the successful landing support was only lukewarm) and I have no difficulty thinking of difficult problems with enormous societal buy-in and vast funding that proved intractable. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-opposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moond...
    - umvi 5y ago
      I don't buy it. Apollo almost failed many times by administrative churn and lack of public support. Apollo was successful because of passionate engineers working on the problem not by public support
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        The engineers did not pay for the project or their salaries. And certainly they weren't working for free or even under market rate.
        umvi 5y ago
        The salaried engineers worked way more hours than a 9-5 and were not paid overtime AFAIK
        lmilcin 5y ago
        Which is almost every company I have worked for for the past 20 years. Listen, these guys were very good, dedicated engineers. But to say they did this without public support is stupid, because they were paid for from public money in the first place. The public support comes in many ways. Just because some people didn't like the idea doesn't mean there was no public support. The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC.
        umvi 5y ago
        > The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC. Well if that's your definition of "public support", Apollo just barely had enough to succeed. The Lyndon B. Johnson Administration that came after JFK was actively defunding Apollo and trying to dismantle the space program. Back to my original point, society didn't "collectively decide" to make moon landings happen. JFK made a few bold claims to boost his public image against Russia and his successors tried to dismantle said space program. If it weren't for the tenacious engineers and leaders at NASA, moon landings would not have happened. In other words, if the engineers/leaders at NASA were not passionate enough, LBJ would have succeeded at dismantling Apollo.
  - im_down_w_otp 5y ago
    Certainly half of it is. Unfortunately, it's not the half of the problem that progress is helping with since we're not for a lack of productive output or a dearth of needless waste.
  - runarberg 5y ago
    Nah, these are two separate problems. First is the technological problem of producing enough food, building material, medicine, etc. Then there is the problem of the political class not unwilling to fund infrastructure and projects to put this technology in use. Think of it like a software team that has excellent developers but terrible devops. The developers have long long since fixed many of the bugs and implemented most of the features, but the devops is slow, corrupt, and incompetent so very few of the features actually make it to production.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      > Nah, these are two separate problems. First is the technological problem of producing enough food, building material, medicine, etc. There is no technological problem. We are already wasting more food that would be necessary to feed people who are starving. Even USSR, at the height of its inefficiency, was able to build housing for most of its inhabitants. It wasn't palaces but it did its job. And when we need we can somehow find a way to crank out vaccine to vaccinate entire countries. And these are given out for free (of course, we pay for them in taxes, but still it can be done...) > Then there is the problem of the political class not unwilling I think you meant "willing". Here, this is the problem. When you say it is "political class", what you really say it is not your problem. And this is the cause of why this is not getting solved. Because the problem is really you and other people like you who think it is not their problem. If the people decided it is a problem worth solving and supported it with their votes, the "political class" would follow and solve the problem. The "political class" responds to what is on peoples minds and to what people want. If people decide to spend their focus quabbling over building big walls or election results or vaccine efficacy, guess what is not getting solved? Anything else isn't getting solved.
      - runarberg 5y ago
        Being an immigrant and not allowed to vote, it is not fair to claim I’m responsible for the political class. Also public opinion rarely results in policy. Most Americans for example favor spending on green infrastructure to tackle the climate crisis, most Americans favor a more universal health care system, etc. yet the political class is hesitant.
  - kiba 5y ago
    The most difficult problems in life are sometime political, not physics or technical challenges.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      Not sure why you are getting downvoted, obviously you are right. Now, the political problem reflects us as people. If people wanted the problem solved, politicians would find a way to solve it for the sake of their own interest. The way I understand it is that most people are really selfish in that they only care about themselves and maybe family and friends. And it doesn't get any better because people are more and more focusing on themselves and getting cut off from community.
- yarky 5y ago
  I'd guess it's all about individual vs collective progress. I've realized that places with homogeneous demographics (e.g. nordics) are usually those interested in solving what you call basic problems while the focus tends towards individual progress wherever people look less alike. I guess there must be well understood tribe/ethnic reasons to explain that.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Nordic countries are kinda special in this regard. Historically, you were very unlikely to survive in northern climate on your own. Being part of community was necessary prerequisite for survival. I have been on couple trips to northern Norway/Sweden. People there did not even have locks in their houses, it wasn't even necessary. I wonder if it changed now with advent of migrations from eastern Europe and Middle East.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Same in Northern Canada. When buying a house there usually at the end of the financial part of the transfer of a house you get the keys. The previous owners rather sheepishly admitted they didn't have them. Lawyer pipes up 'then we'll have to change the locks'. Owners say that's going to be a lot of work because the doors never had any locks in the first place. We kept it like that.
      - wccrawford 5y ago
        I can't even imagine not changes the locks on a house you just bought. (Unless, as in your case, locks aren't even desired.) Even if the previous owner had no malicious intent, they might have accidentally kept a key that someone else could get ahold of... Or they might have given out a key, etc. There's no good reason to avoid it, IMO.
        bittercynic 5y ago
        It's also a fun thing to do. The re-key kit is only a few bucks, and it's a pretty simple process, and you get to enjoy the ingenuity contained in the lock while you work on it.
- jokoon 5y ago
  Well, technological progress doesn't necessarily cause social progress, but it might allow it though. It's a problem of values. Despite abundance, people still believe that people who don't work a 9to5 job are not worthy or good treatment. Most people still believe in a hierarchy of people and values, and that "there is no free meal", except yes, there is: most food is subsidized and cheap. Like it or not, "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work sets you free") was displayed at the entrance of concentration camps, and I really think that if you ask people around, they would still hold the same opinion that 100% of people should work and that nobody should escape that. Now, work is divided between "noble" work, which is essentially office work, and "essential" jobs, which are necessary. Like in the middle ages, nobility is better valued because they're privileged. Society is really upside down, and despite the years of communism and socialism, which are mostly dead now, it seems we haven't really evolved.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    The contradiction lies in the fact that people work so they can work less and once there are people that do not have to work then how do they get access to that abundance? Through their own work? That would defeat the point. Through the work of others? The working people will get angry because they want to work and for the sake of fairness, they demand others to work just as hard even if there is no work for them to be done. Yes you can create more work so that everyone has work but what people forget is that you have to create those jobs in the first place. The reason why politicians should strive for full employment is that abundance of labor leads to desperation, which leads to a worse treatment of workers and thus employers are more willing to waste their time. When there is full employment then labor is scarce and precious, meaning the time of the workers is scarce and precious which means employers will either make sure that the workers are treated well and enjoy their time or at least let their time be used for more "productive" endeavors. >Society is really upside down, and despite the years of communism and socialism, which are mostly dead now, it seems we haven't really evolved. They are solving the wrong problem. Really, just make sure basic macroeconomic accounting rules work and everything will be fine. For example: Everything produced must be consumed. When you apply this principle on labor, full employment becomes inevitable. How does our economic system violate that rule? It is possible to earn more than you spend, meaning you produce more than you consume. The excess is the deposit in your bank account. If you don't consume labor through work then it will be consumed by being idle. Thus the real value of your savings is eroding day by day until one day your savings have no value because all the freed time was spent idle. Thus the logical conclusion is that there must be a deadline for your savings. At some point you must spend them before they lost all their value, not because there is an evil government stealing your money or whatever, because nature is eroding the real value of your money. Labor is spoiling the same way fruit spoil. If you want to save then you should save in real terms. i.e. you use your money to buy goods that last longer than labor (a house or industrial machinery) or a promise of a future payment (bonds or stocks). Saving in real terms leads to the employment of other people rather than their unemployment because it still counts as spending for accounting purposes. The reason why a gold standard is a stupid idea is that linking money to something like gold will make people hold onto the currency because of the exposure of gold. When gold goes up in value people will stop spending because their nominal wealth is going up even though their real wealth isn't going up. In fact, by not spending your money there will be people that didn't work and your real wealth is actually going down. There is another reason why spending should be forced or encouraged: Debts create money and repaying them destroys money. Holding onto money prevents debts from being repaid or in other words: The debt will exist as long as the deposit exists. There are obvious implications: Government debt can never go down because deposits never go down because people are not forced to spend them.
- throwaway-x123 5y ago
  Lets consider more common case with working poor. At the same time we see high income inequality. We see unemployment. We see that productivity is a few times higher than it was in 1930. What is the solution? I think you know it, it was done once, 100 years ago. The work day was reduced to 8 hours/day. It could be reduced now to say 4 hours/day. No wage cut. In the past, who reduced the work day? The workers organized and reduced the work day. Why they do not do that? I think they do not know that they can work less. They still think they need to work more to produce all the food, more houses, etc. While in reality they produce income inequality, lots of bullshit jobs and unemployment. You can help, agitate, organize, join union for shorter workday same wage.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    A point on the 8 hour work day, because a lot of people will instantly think "Ford", is that it took decades of union campaigning, and quite a few dead and injured in clashes with police and Pinkerton agents, to start getting traction. By the time Ford shortened his working hours, the unions had already gotten hours cut a lot and put in a huge amount of effort changing the narrative on working hours. Most people are also unaware that May 1st as the international day for labour demonstrations is in part in commemoration of the Chicago Haymarket Massacre, and as the starting point for a renewed fight for the 8-hour working day in its aftermath, on the request of the AFL president at the time.
  - ericd 5y ago
    There are also far fewer barriers to working with people around the world who don't demand nearly so much as you are, than there were in 1930. We could put some up, but it's not as just simple as saying "we want twice the hourly wage and half the workday". Cheap international flights, instant high fidelity telecommunication, standardized container shipping, and streamlined trade with low trade barriers are just a few of the things that have made it less necessary to find workers locally.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  you could make a strong argument that humanity has barely progressed socially in spite of vast technological development
- gmadsen 5y ago
  because those problems involve messy parts of the human experience. math/physics, basic science can be pretty divorced from human sociology/psychology/etc. you don't need to think of the 2nd/3rd/4th order effects on society if you prove some theorem in number theory.
- EGreg 5y ago
  This is not a new question. In fact, over 100 years ago, a person got really famous writing a book called Progress and Poverty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty His name was Henry George, and he famously recommended reducing all taxes to one: the land tax. His book was hailed by everyone from Milton Friedman to Leo Tolstoy and US Presidents wrote glowing reviews. And somehow, it is all forgotten today, except among trained economists who had to maybe read it in college. Most libertarians in the US today are capitalist, and have no concept of Georgism or left-libertarianism.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    The trouble is that the times of land meaning anything are over. In today's world of intangible goods you can produce without owning any land. Why would multi-billion pharma company pay less taxes than a local farmer, because the land needed for offices to run bio-research is less than a small field to grow crops for couple families?
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Looking at real estate prices, land is far from worthless.
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        I am not saying land is worthless. I am saying that owning land is no longer prerequisite for producing a lot. Two hundred years ago you had to own land to be "big", because most ways to produce anything required land to grow crops or land to extract natural resources or services with connection with those two types of activity. If you look at top 10 largest companies in the world, only one is tied to a lot of land or services for other companies with lots of land (Saudi Aramco). Before one hundred years ago the largest companies or wealth creators would inevitably be largest land owners or ones that provide services for largest land owners.
  - at_compile_time 5y ago
    Link to the audiobook for anyone else interested: https://librivox.org/progress-and-poverty-by-henry-george/ https://librivox.org/progress-and-poverty-by-henry-george/
- panic 5y ago
  What we think of as 'progress' depends on a lot of dangerous and unpleasant labor. It would be difficult to get people to do this labor without the the threat of homelessness and starvation.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Perhaps viewed differently: providing everyone with food, water, power, housing, and medical care takes a lot of unpleasant and coordinated effort and that needs to be paid for somehow.
  - bsanr2 5y ago
    There are many historical examples of people participating in less-than-ideal labor situations because they were well-compensated and saw that their work would lead to greater prosperity for their community and country. The carrot was enough and the stick superfluous. Capitalists often fall prey to the notion that hard and productive work isn't being performed unless someone is sacrificing their health or safety or happiness; that's wrong. We can do these things and provide a good life for the people doing them, too. In some cases this will mean that the doing will be its value itself, or even a loss leader for other efforts. That's fine; not everything needs to be profitable to be valuable.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I’d argue that progress and “people not having food, shelter, or access to basic medical help” are definitionally incompatible.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  world is complex, i'm not excusing but i've seen enough absurdity like these to start to know that, at large scales, simple becomes problematic. money flows where big pockets and trends go, unless it's a country which values a solid higher ground for all, you'll be left out
- rayiner 5y ago
  We do all of those things! Medicaid, Section 8, SNAP, SSDI, etc.
- crisdux 5y ago
  We have solved those issues for the vast majority of the country! Heck we provide all of that and more. Now we are even giving welfare payments to middle and upper middle income families(in the form of an enhanced child tax credit).
- ithinkso 5y ago
  I think it comes down to 'I work to have what I have, why others should have things for free'. Even though the things you get for working are good and you have a great life, and the free things are shit but let you at least survive just barely, it's still too much. 'If I work to have a great life, those that don't are not eligible for anything, not even the smallest things' and then you can complain about homelessness in your area because it's more important to be able to complain than to solve the issue and get rid of the issue to complain about
wcerfgba 5y ago
The Housing First approach has been around for a while and has plenty of evidence to support it [1]. Good to see further uptake and to see this on front page HN. :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  These programs have existed in several large US cities for over a decade. They’re not well known, though. Usually people who live in a city with one of these programs think that their city is unique for having done it. The programs do help, but they’re not a magic bullet for all homelessness. I have a group of friends who have made careers in this space. Sadly, getting housing for these people is only half the of the solution. The temporary homeless really do use these housing units as a springboard to get back on their feet, usually moving out as they get their lives in order. The challenge is the rest of the residents who aren’t interested in even free services to help get them change their lives or overcome their issues. It’s also a challenge to get some of the residents to cooperate with the rules of these housing units (which aren’t different than regular rentals, nothing onerous).
  - bjornsing 5y ago
    > The challenge is the rest of the residents who aren’t interested in even free services to help get them change their lives or overcome their issues. As I understand it, the trick is to just accept that these people exist and still need a roof over their head. Turns out that’s cheaper than policing them when living on the streets.
988747 5y ago
I forsee a lot of people becoming "homeless" in the near future, so that they can get the free housing.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Please provide data to back this unfounded assertion.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    There is nothing unfounded about the claim that people are driven by self-interest. What data is he/she supposed to produce for a new policy that is only going to show the full scope of its impact over 50 years? EDIT, I'm being rate-limited, so I'll respond to the below here: No, there is very clear negative correlation between economic growth and government spending levels: https://web.archive.org/web/20170821004405/http://ime.bg/uploads/335309_OptimalSizeOfGovernment.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20170821004405/http://ime.bg/upl... Calling it "wild speculation" is disingenuous given social welfare spending's well documented negative impact on economic efficiency, and the basic economic theory that predicts this outcome. >>there are overwhelming examples of entitlement systems that are solvent and functional despite a level of free ridership. The most commonly cited example, Scandinavia, shows the opposite of what's popularly believed: https://iea.org.uk/publications/research/scandinavian-unexceptionalism-culture-markets-and-the-failure-of-third-way-soc https://iea.org.uk/publications/research/scandinavian-unexce... >>Stop holding back progress with unconstructive and uneducated critiques of iterative improvements to the social safety net apparatus. Stop taking it as a priori that any move toward your preferred economic system; social democracy, is progress, and any one who questions it is being "unconstructive and uneducated". It's a very emotional/unconstructive attitude to bring to a discussion of such importance.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Wild speculation masquerading as an educated opinion holds negative value. If you make the assertion, provide facts to back it. People are self interested and yet there are overwhelming examples of entitlement systems that are solvent and functional despite a level of free ridership (which is unavoidable). We provide food assistance to people, some of whom might be able to work a bit more to not need it, but the benefit is overwhelmingly positive. Everyone will not immediately become reckless if universal healthcare is provided. This is no different. Everyone will not quit their jobs tomorrow to get a free home, just as everyone has not quit their jobs to live off of food stamps (or your country's equivalent benefit). The worst that happens is its an experiment that fails, and there is still value in the data point. If you're not in Finland, and you're not contributing financially to this, I'd like you share why you feel so revolted by this idea, as we have to get to the heart of the core belief or value system being challenged by this effort. (removed last sentence quoted in comment I replied to because it felt unhelpful and unkind to the discussion)
bestcoder69 5y ago
Cheaters. You gotta do this a roundabout way, not by just addressing the issue directly.
konart 5y ago
What about people who refuse to use the shelter?
- brazzy 5y ago
  People refuse shelter when it's dangerous to them or comes with prerequesites they cannot fulfill. I think you can figure out the rest. Here's an inside view: https://www.reddit.com/r/vagabond/comments/o5yalm/accordong_to_a_hobo_the_problem_with_the_homeless/ https://www.reddit.com/r/vagabond/comments/o5yalm/accordong_...
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    Like, for example, inability to consume alcohol or use drugs, which is half of the reason people in US refuse shelters (the other half is that shelters are full of homeless people).
    - brazzy 5y ago
      Yes, a shelter program that does not adress addicts (and keeping them out does not count as "addressing") is in fact designed to fail.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Or designed to handle homeless cases not related to addiction. That the arguments “Not all homeless are drug addicts and/or mentally ill” and “homeless services not designed to deal with drug addiction and/or mental illness will fail” are often located close to each other annoys me. There is plenty of low hanging fruit to be had in dealing with the easier homeless cases. While we shouldn’t ignore the harder cases, it’s no excuse for waiting to pick that low hanging fruit.
      - zdragnar 5y ago
        The problem is, you cannot (legally) force addicts to stop (in the US). They either accept the help, or they don't. Some do, many more do not.
jollybean 5y ago
By their own data it seems they were able to effectively combat and reduce homelessness long before the 'housing first' strategy, which is worth noting. Also notably - is that the 'big dent' made by the program is those that are living temporarily with friends, not those on the street. In fact, those living 'Outside, in temporarily shelters or dormitories' has actually grown quite a lot into 2019. It's always interesting to see how detailed data sheds insight into big picture schemes.
peakaboo 5y ago
Communism. They should do it like in America and just charge people 10 times more for their shelters. Thats progress! /s
Proven 5y ago
> In the past 10 years, 270 million euros were spent on the construction, purchase and renovation of housing as part of the “Housing First” programme Almost $300 mil in properties to acommodate 10,000 people. That's California-style efficiency! Plus the government gets to play landord with taxpayer money. But no such info in the title - it's always about the benefit, never about the cost, as long as the money can be printed out of nothing or endlessly borrowed so nobody has to pay for that largesse!
perfobotto 5y ago
Whenever I read articles like “Nordic country succeeds doing X” I always wonder if that would work on a country that is not 6 million people with tons of natural resources available per capita (Oil, timber, ore). Sadly I generally think not, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong …
- floitsch 5y ago
  Finland is not really a country that relies heavily on natural resources. First page I found ranks the US as having more income from natural resources than Finland. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/natural_resources_income/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/natural_resources_...
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    I never understood comparing Finland and other small countries with the US. Finland's population is less than that of NYC.
    - floitsch 5y ago
      That's why you compare per capita.
      - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
        That's where you learn some systems are just not scalable. There is a reason why we use complexity measures in computer science. Why do we assume a-priori all social systems are scalable by 10 to 20 times? That seems unscientific.
        maqp 5y ago
        Why do you need to compare the entire US? Only 20 states have more people than Finland does. Also, if Japan with its 125 MILLION people can have 0.3 homeless per 100k (about half of what we have in Finland) why can't California with 40M people pull it off. The GDP in California is 70k per capita, In Japan its 40,2k.
kiza 5y ago
So the homeless are provided an apartment but they still have to pay rent. The article seems to be missing some key info about how the rent is different from a normal rental.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Y-Säätiö offers non-profit apartments, so the rent is based on cost. https://m2kodit.fi/en/ https://m2kodit.fi/en/ I for example found a 35 m^2 apartment in Espoo that's 542 €/month. I rented a similar size apartment in Espoo from a private company for about 800 €/month some years back. The safety deposit is also 0 €. My apartment had a very cheap safety deposit - 200 €, but that is probably too much if you're homeless. Some might charge way more, like two months worth of rent, which would've been 1600 € for me. They also ignore payment deliquencies, which make it very hard to find an apartment on the free market.
  - ex3ndr 5y ago
    This is a price of 200m^2 flat in the center of Saint Petersburg, Russia. With ~same prices for food that makes ~x3 to the price of food. In what world this is ok for homeless to pay that much?
    - maqp 5y ago
      Finnish social welfare includes free medical/dental care and drugs. The social welfare and housing support total about 1200€ / month. So after bills, they have between 400-700€ / month for food, clothing etc. It's not anything fancy, but it will keep you off the streets, begging.
abeppu 5y ago
Just as a point of comparison, one of the programs San Francisco introduced during the pandemic was "safe sleeping sites", which are parking lots where homeless can have their tent without it being periodically swept by police. To that, they add chemical toilets, a water supply and (I'm not sure why) 24/7 security staff. For this, the city pays around $60k per tent site per year. I'm not sure if this is in part due to some unsavory relationship between the org administering the program and some city official. Recently the program was extended. It would be cheaper to rent apartments at current market rates, even in San Francisco. Our revealed preference seems to be that we'd rather have homeless people live in tents than have poor people get free or nearly free housing.
- baron816 5y ago
  The city is still giving out lots of housing. Except when the city tries to build housing, it takes many years and $800k per unit. The city has put up so many regulatory hurdles that make it almost impossible to build anything. Consider this project that would've added 19 housing units https://twitter.com/samdman95/status/1415839145386196993 https://twitter.com/samdman95/status/1415839145386196993. It was blocked because it would've increased shadow cover on Delores Park by .001% (as if SF has a shadow problem instead of a housing problem). There really is no point in the city trying to build housing for the homeless without addressing the regulatory issues first. If the city were to try to build housing for all its (by the official count) 8000 homeless people, it would cost >$6 billion.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    And solving the regulatory hurdles might also might start to reduce the homelessness problem before the city even starts giving away free units to anyone in need.
  - malandrew 5y ago
    Relative to pretty much all other markets, it's practically impossible to solve homelessness in San Francisco. There are at least two major considerations. The first is the one you pointed out that there are far too many barriers. The second is that San Francisco is a fundamentally hard city to succeed in. Even competent folks with good educations and no real personal problems struggle to do well in San Francisco. If it is hard for such people, it's only going to be far more difficult for people without the same education and with many personal problems. With these two major constraints in mind, it boggles my mind that we continue to try and solve the problem in San Francisco, instead of directing all the resources to other markets without these constraints. Providing resources elsewhere and removing support in San Francisco will serve to incentivize the homeless to relocate to places where programs like housing first can be tried and where they have a chance of actually getting on their own two feet because they aren't in a hyper-competitive local market. Last time someone asked me to donate money to the homeless problem in San Francisco, I told them no, but then proceeded to donate money to a homeless program in another city (at the time I chose a program in Sacremento) because it's beyond stupid to keep putting money into trying to solve the problem in San Francisco if you actually want to see results from the money you spend on the problem. People working on this problem in San Francisco either have more heart than brains or they are part of the San Francisco homelessness industrial complex and have a vested interest in keeping these programs in San Francisco because they want to live in San Francisco and are employed in this industry. Social worker salaries in San Francisco are $60k to $100k a year. If you can pay for two to three social workers in other markets instead for the same price, why pay for such people to work in San Francisco.
snthd 5y ago
[2020]
Geee 5y ago
Just to clarify, in Finland housing and basic living expenses are provided for everyone who doesn't have enough income. Still, there are people who end up on the streets for some reason, and this program is aimed at helping those people.
known 5y ago
Why do we need to know about progress if we are concerned about the world’s large problems? https://ourworldindata.org/problems-and-progress https://ourworldindata.org/problems-and-progress
wirthjason 5y ago
I wish there were more in depth articles about these problems. They tend to focus on “feel good” aspects while glossing over the details and trade offs made. As I get older more and more I find that all new ideas are old ideas. As if great idea just sitting there, oblivious to everyone else, waiting for someone to pick it up. Often someone else tried the solution but it never worked. What changed? That’s what I want to know. For example, the article has a click-bait headline that makes you feel good because homelessness “ended”. Apparently homelessness was reduced, not ended. It’s a better outcome than before. > In the last 10 years, the “Housing First” program provided 4,600 homes in Finland. While in 2017 there were still about 1,900 people living on the streets, the program could reduce this number to less than 1000 long-term homeless by 2019 – but there were enough places for them in emergency shelters so that they at least didn’t have to sleep outside anymore. Also, the math is murky. The article states that the direct cost of housing is cheaper than the current expenses. It’s quite easy to figure out the cost of building new things but very difficult for those other services. > Creating housing for people costs money. In the past 10 years, 270 million euros were spent on the construction, purchase and renovation of housing as part of the “Housing First” programme. However, Juha Kaakinen points out, this is far less than the cost of homelessness itself. Because when people are in emergency situations, emergencies are more frequent: Assaults, injuries, breakdowns. The police, health care and justice systems are more often called upon to step in – and this also costs money. The first book I read that went into these complex issues was “Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell. He made convincing arguments about how economics work and how of often polices designed to help people hurt them. Rent control in NY was a policy designed to help people but actually made it worse for many.
- kubb 5y ago
  When and where was it tried before? <1000 homeless sounds like a success.
tcbasche 5y ago
It's definitely noticeable as a newly-adopted Helsinkian. I think I might have seen like 3 people on the street asking for change in the last couple of months. And it's the same 3 people...
timonoko 5y ago
This is what Sweden did 50 years ago. My Vespa broke down on the way to Paris. I needed money, so I just went to the Göteborg employment office and got a job and an apartment. But all this is now gone. They have huge homeless problem among older ethnic Swedes especially. Because this is HN, I wont go into details and causes and consequences...
100011 5y ago
lol at people lapping this article up to support their brainwormed political opinions. i actually live here, no homelessness has been ended.
- container 5y ago
  Beyond the clickbait headline, even the article didn't say it was.
kaliali 5y ago
Also they keep their borders protected from begging parasites.
HissingMachine 5y ago
This is fake news, almost nothing about this article is accurate or factual, homelessness is a problem in this country that usually is unearthed by investigative journalists because apparently we don't have homeless problem so we don't even keep an official record, but we get articles like this to pat ourselves in the back which makes this even more embarrassing. t. a 40yo finn
- vladharbuz 5y ago
  Could you point us to a resource where we can read more about this? Perhaps a source pointing to data being covered up?
- agumonkey 5y ago
  what's the general sentiment about homeless in the population ? is it more like "chase them out, i dont care" or "we would like to do something but nothing ever happens" ?
  - fsloth 5y ago
    Generally finns want and expect the government to offer everyone in need free housing. When this does not happen everyone is surprised.
- Popegaf 5y ago
  Links of that investigative journalism would be nice to support your claims of this being fake news. The Y-Foundation exists https://ysaatio.fi/en/home https://ysaatio.fi/en/home and they have reports too. > apparently we don't have homeless problem so we don't even keep an official record There is an official record by the Housing Finance and Development Center of Finland: https://www.ara.fi/en-US/Materials/Homelessness_reports https://www.ara.fi/en-US/Materials/Homelessness_reports More information can also be found at https://housingfirsteurope.eu/countries/finland/ https://housingfirsteurope.eu/countries/finland/
- svnpenn 5y ago
  Saying something is fake with your only reference being your claim that "you're a Finn", is pretty much meaningless.
desktopninja 5y ago
States side: https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/18/jon-cryer-wife-lisa-joyner-donate-30k-support-tiny-homes-homeless/ https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/18/jon-cryer-wife-lisa-joyner-do... I commend this project. Also personally wish 3D printing homes be formalized, at the very least for single dwelling units. Cities can rezone for it and probably use the land better than golf courses. I'll go on to wish that each SDU is has a cost limit of 10k$ anywhere you go in the country and can only have one human owner. If the unit is to be rented out, then rent would also be capped to number that is reasonable for basic living. The idea here is every adult citizen can own a dwelling. There's may ethical things to consider but pretty optimistic we could come up with good governance policies.
kebman 5y ago
This reads like one of the silly headlines you'd see in the first iteration of Civilization. Except it's real. And heartwarming!
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
NYC has right-to-shelter laws, which prevent anyone from being denied access to a homeless shelter. If the shelter runs out of space, they will literally rent out hotels. I think this is great, and it makes me proud of my city—but frustratingly, there are still beggars on the streets, who for one reason or another have decided not to accept the city's shelter. What has Finland done differently?
- flavius29663 5y ago
  I think the answer is in the article. They don't just provide shelters, which have many issues on their own, they put the homeless in apartments with tenant agreements, dragging them back into society. In most of Europe there are enough shelters for the homeless, but many people avoid them, I'm guessing violence, theft and strict rules is what turns them away. For example, whenever there's a cold snap, the Romanian police is canvasing all the homeless locations and bringing everyone in shelters...I guess they prefer dealing with homeless people rather than dead bodies.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  NYC shelters are notoriously bad places to be. I've heard and read many times that the streets tend to be safer and more comfortable. Maybe things are good if you time it just right and get a hotel room during one of those overflow periods. I'm not sure what the solution to that issue was, but it seems to one of or the main reason why the shelter system does not work like you'd expect.
jSully24 5y ago
This is an interesting experiment in Minneapolis. I can’t find any earl results yet. What I like is it’s meant to be a transition, not permanent. https://www.freethink.com/social-change/tiny-house-village-for-homeless-people https://www.freethink.com/social-change/tiny-house-village-f...
deleted 5y ago
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saklani 5y ago
Finland be like: fuck it, lets just end homelessness by giving everyone a home.
deleted 5y ago
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yawaworht1978 5y ago
Every country should have this. Capitalism is the way to go currently, but make sure the bottom of the food chain is provided for.
PicassoCTs 5y ago
The homeless are there, to provide the lowest working-poor caste the illusion, that there is always a even lower station in life that fate could have delt them.
collaborative 5y ago
When I became homeless and broke I was lucky enough to have a friend who at the time let me use his address to apply for a job I also tried seeking help from my local authority and was told there wasn't any 2 months of work, couch surfing and eating boiled pasta got me to a stage where I could rent a room I think that for most, support is all it takes to get back on your feet
freddybobs 5y ago
There is a good episode about homelessness in the US on the 'You're wrong about' podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/homelessness/id1380008439?i=1000465289894 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/homelessness/id1380008... In it they cite studies that show that efforts in the US somewhat similar to this Finland program are generally very successful, and typically cheaper overall compared to not having such programs.
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354 points by mpweiher 5y ago

I always wonder what is the point of progress if we can't use it to solve basic problems like people not having food, shelter or access to basic medical help.

hereforphone 5y ago
It's almost like the problem's harder than it seems at first glance or something
- jeffrallen 5y ago
  The first job is buy-in. When a society collectively chooses to solve some difficult problem, it gets solved, no matter how hard it is. Apollo program or homelessness.
  - orzig 5y ago
    Or cancer! Oh oops
    - jeffrallen 5y ago
      5-year survival rates have improved — for some cancers — in adolescents and young adults https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/5-year-survival-rates-have-improved-for-some-cancers-in-adolescents-and-young-adults/ https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/5-year-survival-rates-have-impr...
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Cancer is many things rather than one, and some of those things have been solved.
      - FeepingCreature 5y ago
        So's homelessness.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      Cancer is a hugely complex problem. It is not a single attack vector like a virus. But we are still making great progress on it, just think that the best vaccines for Covid came as fruit of cancer research.
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    It depends on the kind of problem. An engineering challenge, even a really difficult one, is something that can be attacked with effort. Changing human beings is far far more difficult. Perhaps impossible on timescales less than generations. We’ve had societies that really wanted to stop people from using mind altering substances, agree with that goal or not it was something that multiple societies choose to try to solve and mostly they failed. The ones that partly succeeded were the ones that used heinously brutal methods.
  - tedunangst 5y ago
    When was the last time somebody stepped on the moon? If that's success criteria, we just need to stick all the homeless in a hotel for a night, declare the problem solved, then kick them out in the morning.
  - patrec 5y ago
    Back in reality, the majority of society was opposed to the Apollo program (even after the successful landing support was only lukewarm) and I have no difficulty thinking of difficult problems with enormous societal buy-in and vast funding that proved intractable. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-opposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moond...
  - umvi 5y ago
    I don't buy it. Apollo almost failed many times by administrative churn and lack of public support. Apollo was successful because of passionate engineers working on the problem not by public support
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      The engineers did not pay for the project or their salaries. And certainly they weren't working for free or even under market rate.
      - umvi 5y ago
        The salaried engineers worked way more hours than a 9-5 and were not paid overtime AFAIK
        lmilcin 5y ago
        Which is almost every company I have worked for for the past 20 years. Listen, these guys were very good, dedicated engineers. But to say they did this without public support is stupid, because they were paid for from public money in the first place. The public support comes in many ways. Just because some people didn't like the idea doesn't mean there was no public support. The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC.
        umvi 5y ago
        > The ultimate public support is the government, which is officials elected by... wait for it... THE PUBLIC. Well if that's your definition of "public support", Apollo just barely had enough to succeed. The Lyndon B. Johnson Administration that came after JFK was actively defunding Apollo and trying to dismantle the space program. Back to my original point, society didn't "collectively decide" to make moon landings happen. JFK made a few bold claims to boost his public image against Russia and his successors tried to dismantle said space program. If it weren't for the tenacious engineers and leaders at NASA, moon landings would not have happened. In other words, if the engineers/leaders at NASA were not passionate enough, LBJ would have succeeded at dismantling Apollo.
- im_down_w_otp 5y ago
  Certainly half of it is. Unfortunately, it's not the half of the problem that progress is helping with since we're not for a lack of productive output or a dearth of needless waste.
- runarberg 5y ago
  Nah, these are two separate problems. First is the technological problem of producing enough food, building material, medicine, etc. Then there is the problem of the political class not unwilling to fund infrastructure and projects to put this technology in use. Think of it like a software team that has excellent developers but terrible devops. The developers have long long since fixed many of the bugs and implemented most of the features, but the devops is slow, corrupt, and incompetent so very few of the features actually make it to production.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    > Nah, these are two separate problems. First is the technological problem of producing enough food, building material, medicine, etc. There is no technological problem. We are already wasting more food that would be necessary to feed people who are starving. Even USSR, at the height of its inefficiency, was able to build housing for most of its inhabitants. It wasn't palaces but it did its job. And when we need we can somehow find a way to crank out vaccine to vaccinate entire countries. And these are given out for free (of course, we pay for them in taxes, but still it can be done...) > Then there is the problem of the political class not unwilling I think you meant "willing". Here, this is the problem. When you say it is "political class", what you really say it is not your problem. And this is the cause of why this is not getting solved. Because the problem is really you and other people like you who think it is not their problem. If the people decided it is a problem worth solving and supported it with their votes, the "political class" would follow and solve the problem. The "political class" responds to what is on peoples minds and to what people want. If people decide to spend their focus quabbling over building big walls or election results or vaccine efficacy, guess what is not getting solved? Anything else isn't getting solved.
    - runarberg 5y ago
      Being an immigrant and not allowed to vote, it is not fair to claim I’m responsible for the political class. Also public opinion rarely results in policy. Most Americans for example favor spending on green infrastructure to tackle the climate crisis, most Americans favor a more universal health care system, etc. yet the political class is hesitant.
- kiba 5y ago
  The most difficult problems in life are sometime political, not physics or technical challenges.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Not sure why you are getting downvoted, obviously you are right. Now, the political problem reflects us as people. If people wanted the problem solved, politicians would find a way to solve it for the sake of their own interest. The way I understand it is that most people are really selfish in that they only care about themselves and maybe family and friends. And it doesn't get any better because people are more and more focusing on themselves and getting cut off from community.
yarky 5y ago
I'd guess it's all about individual vs collective progress. I've realized that places with homogeneous demographics (e.g. nordics) are usually those interested in solving what you call basic problems while the focus tends towards individual progress wherever people look less alike. I guess there must be well understood tribe/ethnic reasons to explain that.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Nordic countries are kinda special in this regard. Historically, you were very unlikely to survive in northern climate on your own. Being part of community was necessary prerequisite for survival. I have been on couple trips to northern Norway/Sweden. People there did not even have locks in their houses, it wasn't even necessary. I wonder if it changed now with advent of migrations from eastern Europe and Middle East.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Same in Northern Canada. When buying a house there usually at the end of the financial part of the transfer of a house you get the keys. The previous owners rather sheepishly admitted they didn't have them. Lawyer pipes up 'then we'll have to change the locks'. Owners say that's going to be a lot of work because the doors never had any locks in the first place. We kept it like that.
    - wccrawford 5y ago
      I can't even imagine not changes the locks on a house you just bought. (Unless, as in your case, locks aren't even desired.) Even if the previous owner had no malicious intent, they might have accidentally kept a key that someone else could get ahold of... Or they might have given out a key, etc. There's no good reason to avoid it, IMO.
      - bittercynic 5y ago
        It's also a fun thing to do. The re-key kit is only a few bucks, and it's a pretty simple process, and you get to enjoy the ingenuity contained in the lock while you work on it.
jokoon 5y ago
Well, technological progress doesn't necessarily cause social progress, but it might allow it though. It's a problem of values. Despite abundance, people still believe that people who don't work a 9to5 job are not worthy or good treatment. Most people still believe in a hierarchy of people and values, and that "there is no free meal", except yes, there is: most food is subsidized and cheap. Like it or not, "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work sets you free") was displayed at the entrance of concentration camps, and I really think that if you ask people around, they would still hold the same opinion that 100% of people should work and that nobody should escape that. Now, work is divided between "noble" work, which is essentially office work, and "essential" jobs, which are necessary. Like in the middle ages, nobility is better valued because they're privileged. Society is really upside down, and despite the years of communism and socialism, which are mostly dead now, it seems we haven't really evolved.
- imtringued 5y ago
  The contradiction lies in the fact that people work so they can work less and once there are people that do not have to work then how do they get access to that abundance? Through their own work? That would defeat the point. Through the work of others? The working people will get angry because they want to work and for the sake of fairness, they demand others to work just as hard even if there is no work for them to be done. Yes you can create more work so that everyone has work but what people forget is that you have to create those jobs in the first place. The reason why politicians should strive for full employment is that abundance of labor leads to desperation, which leads to a worse treatment of workers and thus employers are more willing to waste their time. When there is full employment then labor is scarce and precious, meaning the time of the workers is scarce and precious which means employers will either make sure that the workers are treated well and enjoy their time or at least let their time be used for more "productive" endeavors. >Society is really upside down, and despite the years of communism and socialism, which are mostly dead now, it seems we haven't really evolved. They are solving the wrong problem. Really, just make sure basic macroeconomic accounting rules work and everything will be fine. For example: Everything produced must be consumed. When you apply this principle on labor, full employment becomes inevitable. How does our economic system violate that rule? It is possible to earn more than you spend, meaning you produce more than you consume. The excess is the deposit in your bank account. If you don't consume labor through work then it will be consumed by being idle. Thus the real value of your savings is eroding day by day until one day your savings have no value because all the freed time was spent idle. Thus the logical conclusion is that there must be a deadline for your savings. At some point you must spend them before they lost all their value, not because there is an evil government stealing your money or whatever, because nature is eroding the real value of your money. Labor is spoiling the same way fruit spoil. If you want to save then you should save in real terms. i.e. you use your money to buy goods that last longer than labor (a house or industrial machinery) or a promise of a future payment (bonds or stocks). Saving in real terms leads to the employment of other people rather than their unemployment because it still counts as spending for accounting purposes. The reason why a gold standard is a stupid idea is that linking money to something like gold will make people hold onto the currency because of the exposure of gold. When gold goes up in value people will stop spending because their nominal wealth is going up even though their real wealth isn't going up. In fact, by not spending your money there will be people that didn't work and your real wealth is actually going down. There is another reason why spending should be forced or encouraged: Debts create money and repaying them destroys money. Holding onto money prevents debts from being repaid or in other words: The debt will exist as long as the deposit exists. There are obvious implications: Government debt can never go down because deposits never go down because people are not forced to spend them.
throwaway-x123 5y ago
Lets consider more common case with working poor. At the same time we see high income inequality. We see unemployment. We see that productivity is a few times higher than it was in 1930. What is the solution? I think you know it, it was done once, 100 years ago. The work day was reduced to 8 hours/day. It could be reduced now to say 4 hours/day. No wage cut. In the past, who reduced the work day? The workers organized and reduced the work day. Why they do not do that? I think they do not know that they can work less. They still think they need to work more to produce all the food, more houses, etc. While in reality they produce income inequality, lots of bullshit jobs and unemployment. You can help, agitate, organize, join union for shorter workday same wage.
- vidarh 5y ago
  A point on the 8 hour work day, because a lot of people will instantly think "Ford", is that it took decades of union campaigning, and quite a few dead and injured in clashes with police and Pinkerton agents, to start getting traction. By the time Ford shortened his working hours, the unions had already gotten hours cut a lot and put in a huge amount of effort changing the narrative on working hours. Most people are also unaware that May 1st as the international day for labour demonstrations is in part in commemoration of the Chicago Haymarket Massacre, and as the starting point for a renewed fight for the 8-hour working day in its aftermath, on the request of the AFL president at the time.
- ericd 5y ago
  There are also far fewer barriers to working with people around the world who don't demand nearly so much as you are, than there were in 1930. We could put some up, but it's not as just simple as saying "we want twice the hourly wage and half the workday". Cheap international flights, instant high fidelity telecommunication, standardized container shipping, and streamlined trade with low trade barriers are just a few of the things that have made it less necessary to find workers locally.
endisneigh 5y ago
you could make a strong argument that humanity has barely progressed socially in spite of vast technological development
gmadsen 5y ago
because those problems involve messy parts of the human experience. math/physics, basic science can be pretty divorced from human sociology/psychology/etc. you don't need to think of the 2nd/3rd/4th order effects on society if you prove some theorem in number theory.
EGreg 5y ago
This is not a new question. In fact, over 100 years ago, a person got really famous writing a book called Progress and Poverty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty His name was Henry George, and he famously recommended reducing all taxes to one: the land tax. His book was hailed by everyone from Milton Friedman to Leo Tolstoy and US Presidents wrote glowing reviews. And somehow, it is all forgotten today, except among trained economists who had to maybe read it in college. Most libertarians in the US today are capitalist, and have no concept of Georgism or left-libertarianism.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  The trouble is that the times of land meaning anything are over. In today's world of intangible goods you can produce without owning any land. Why would multi-billion pharma company pay less taxes than a local farmer, because the land needed for offices to run bio-research is less than a small field to grow crops for couple families?
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Looking at real estate prices, land is far from worthless.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      I am not saying land is worthless. I am saying that owning land is no longer prerequisite for producing a lot. Two hundred years ago you had to own land to be "big", because most ways to produce anything required land to grow crops or land to extract natural resources or services with connection with those two types of activity. If you look at top 10 largest companies in the world, only one is tied to a lot of land or services for other companies with lots of land (Saudi Aramco). Before one hundred years ago the largest companies or wealth creators would inevitably be largest land owners or ones that provide services for largest land owners.
- at_compile_time 5y ago
  Link to the audiobook for anyone else interested: https://librivox.org/progress-and-poverty-by-henry-george/ https://librivox.org/progress-and-poverty-by-henry-george/
panic 5y ago
What we think of as 'progress' depends on a lot of dangerous and unpleasant labor. It would be difficult to get people to do this labor without the the threat of homelessness and starvation.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Perhaps viewed differently: providing everyone with food, water, power, housing, and medical care takes a lot of unpleasant and coordinated effort and that needs to be paid for somehow.
- bsanr2 5y ago
  There are many historical examples of people participating in less-than-ideal labor situations because they were well-compensated and saw that their work would lead to greater prosperity for their community and country. The carrot was enough and the stick superfluous. Capitalists often fall prey to the notion that hard and productive work isn't being performed unless someone is sacrificing their health or safety or happiness; that's wrong. We can do these things and provide a good life for the people doing them, too. In some cases this will mean that the doing will be its value itself, or even a loss leader for other efforts. That's fine; not everything needs to be profitable to be valuable.
ashtonkem 5y ago
I’d argue that progress and “people not having food, shelter, or access to basic medical help” are definitionally incompatible.
agumonkey 5y ago
world is complex, i'm not excusing but i've seen enough absurdity like these to start to know that, at large scales, simple becomes problematic. money flows where big pockets and trends go, unless it's a country which values a solid higher ground for all, you'll be left out
rayiner 5y ago
We do all of those things! Medicaid, Section 8, SNAP, SSDI, etc.
crisdux 5y ago
We have solved those issues for the vast majority of the country! Heck we provide all of that and more. Now we are even giving welfare payments to middle and upper middle income families(in the form of an enhanced child tax credit).
ithinkso 5y ago
I think it comes down to 'I work to have what I have, why others should have things for free'. Even though the things you get for working are good and you have a great life, and the free things are shit but let you at least survive just barely, it's still too much. 'If I work to have a great life, those that don't are not eligible for anything, not even the smallest things' and then you can complain about homelessness in your area because it's more important to be able to complain than to solve the issue and get rid of the issue to complain about

wcerfgba 5y ago

The Housing First approach has been around for a while and has plenty of evidence to support it [1]. Good to see further uptake and to see this on front page HN. :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
These programs have existed in several large US cities for over a decade. They’re not well known, though. Usually people who live in a city with one of these programs think that their city is unique for having done it. The programs do help, but they’re not a magic bullet for all homelessness. I have a group of friends who have made careers in this space. Sadly, getting housing for these people is only half the of the solution. The temporary homeless really do use these housing units as a springboard to get back on their feet, usually moving out as they get their lives in order. The challenge is the rest of the residents who aren’t interested in even free services to help get them change their lives or overcome their issues. It’s also a challenge to get some of the residents to cooperate with the rules of these housing units (which aren’t different than regular rentals, nothing onerous).
- bjornsing 5y ago
  > The challenge is the rest of the residents who aren’t interested in even free services to help get them change their lives or overcome their issues. As I understand it, the trick is to just accept that these people exist and still need a roof over their head. Turns out that’s cheaper than policing them when living on the streets.

988747 5y ago

I forsee a lot of people becoming "homeless" in the near future, so that they can get the free housing.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Please provide data to back this unfounded assertion.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  There is nothing unfounded about the claim that people are driven by self-interest. What data is he/she supposed to produce for a new policy that is only going to show the full scope of its impact over 50 years? EDIT, I'm being rate-limited, so I'll respond to the below here: No, there is very clear negative correlation between economic growth and government spending levels: https://web.archive.org/web/20170821004405/http://ime.bg/uploads/335309_OptimalSizeOfGovernment.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20170821004405/http://ime.bg/upl... Calling it "wild speculation" is disingenuous given social welfare spending's well documented negative impact on economic efficiency, and the basic economic theory that predicts this outcome. >>there are overwhelming examples of entitlement systems that are solvent and functional despite a level of free ridership. The most commonly cited example, Scandinavia, shows the opposite of what's popularly believed: https://iea.org.uk/publications/research/scandinavian-unexceptionalism-culture-markets-and-the-failure-of-third-way-soc https://iea.org.uk/publications/research/scandinavian-unexce... >>Stop holding back progress with unconstructive and uneducated critiques of iterative improvements to the social safety net apparatus. Stop taking it as a priori that any move toward your preferred economic system; social democracy, is progress, and any one who questions it is being "unconstructive and uneducated". It's a very emotional/unconstructive attitude to bring to a discussion of such importance.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Wild speculation masquerading as an educated opinion holds negative value. If you make the assertion, provide facts to back it. People are self interested and yet there are overwhelming examples of entitlement systems that are solvent and functional despite a level of free ridership (which is unavoidable). We provide food assistance to people, some of whom might be able to work a bit more to not need it, but the benefit is overwhelmingly positive. Everyone will not immediately become reckless if universal healthcare is provided. This is no different. Everyone will not quit their jobs tomorrow to get a free home, just as everyone has not quit their jobs to live off of food stamps (or your country's equivalent benefit). The worst that happens is its an experiment that fails, and there is still value in the data point. If you're not in Finland, and you're not contributing financially to this, I'd like you share why you feel so revolted by this idea, as we have to get to the heart of the core belief or value system being challenged by this effort. (removed last sentence quoted in comment I replied to because it felt unhelpful and unkind to the discussion)

bestcoder69 5y ago

Cheaters. You gotta do this a roundabout way, not by just addressing the issue directly.

konart 5y ago

What about people who refuse to use the shelter?

brazzy 5y ago
People refuse shelter when it's dangerous to them or comes with prerequesites they cannot fulfill. I think you can figure out the rest. Here's an inside view: https://www.reddit.com/r/vagabond/comments/o5yalm/accordong_to_a_hobo_the_problem_with_the_homeless/ https://www.reddit.com/r/vagabond/comments/o5yalm/accordong_...
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  Like, for example, inability to consume alcohol or use drugs, which is half of the reason people in US refuse shelters (the other half is that shelters are full of homeless people).
  - brazzy 5y ago
    Yes, a shelter program that does not adress addicts (and keeping them out does not count as "addressing") is in fact designed to fail.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      Or designed to handle homeless cases not related to addiction. That the arguments “Not all homeless are drug addicts and/or mentally ill” and “homeless services not designed to deal with drug addiction and/or mental illness will fail” are often located close to each other annoys me. There is plenty of low hanging fruit to be had in dealing with the easier homeless cases. While we shouldn’t ignore the harder cases, it’s no excuse for waiting to pick that low hanging fruit.
    - zdragnar 5y ago
      The problem is, you cannot (legally) force addicts to stop (in the US). They either accept the help, or they don't. Some do, many more do not.

jollybean 5y ago

By their own data it seems they were able to effectively combat and reduce homelessness long before the 'housing first' strategy, which is worth noting. Also notably - is that the 'big dent' made by the program is those that are living temporarily with friends, not those on the street. In fact, those living 'Outside, in temporarily shelters or dormitories' has actually grown quite a lot into 2019. It's always interesting to see how detailed data sheds insight into big picture schemes.

peakaboo 5y ago

Communism. They should do it like in America and just charge people 10 times more for their shelters. Thats progress! /s

Proven 5y ago

> In the past 10 years, 270 million euros were spent on the construction, purchase and renovation of housing as part of the “Housing First” programme Almost $300 mil in properties to acommodate 10,000 people. That's California-style efficiency! Plus the government gets to play landord with taxpayer money. But no such info in the title - it's always about the benefit, never about the cost, as long as the money can be printed out of nothing or endlessly borrowed so nobody has to pay for that largesse!

perfobotto 5y ago

Whenever I read articles like “Nordic country succeeds doing X” I always wonder if that would work on a country that is not 6 million people with tons of natural resources available per capita (Oil, timber, ore). Sadly I generally think not, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong …

floitsch 5y ago
Finland is not really a country that relies heavily on natural resources. First page I found ranks the US as having more income from natural resources than Finland. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/natural_resources_income/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/natural_resources_...
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  I never understood comparing Finland and other small countries with the US. Finland's population is less than that of NYC.
  - floitsch 5y ago
    That's why you compare per capita.
    - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
      That's where you learn some systems are just not scalable. There is a reason why we use complexity measures in computer science. Why do we assume a-priori all social systems are scalable by 10 to 20 times? That seems unscientific.
      - maqp 5y ago
        Why do you need to compare the entire US? Only 20 states have more people than Finland does. Also, if Japan with its 125 MILLION people can have 0.3 homeless per 100k (about half of what we have in Finland) why can't California with 40M people pull it off. The GDP in California is 70k per capita, In Japan its 40,2k.

kiza 5y ago

So the homeless are provided an apartment but they still have to pay rent. The article seems to be missing some key info about how the rent is different from a normal rental.

Hamuko 5y ago
Y-Säätiö offers non-profit apartments, so the rent is based on cost. https://m2kodit.fi/en/ https://m2kodit.fi/en/ I for example found a 35 m^2 apartment in Espoo that's 542 €/month. I rented a similar size apartment in Espoo from a private company for about 800 €/month some years back. The safety deposit is also 0 €. My apartment had a very cheap safety deposit - 200 €, but that is probably too much if you're homeless. Some might charge way more, like two months worth of rent, which would've been 1600 € for me. They also ignore payment deliquencies, which make it very hard to find an apartment on the free market.
- ex3ndr 5y ago
  This is a price of 200m^2 flat in the center of Saint Petersburg, Russia. With ~same prices for food that makes ~x3 to the price of food. In what world this is ok for homeless to pay that much?
  - maqp 5y ago
    Finnish social welfare includes free medical/dental care and drugs. The social welfare and housing support total about 1200€ / month. So after bills, they have between 400-700€ / month for food, clothing etc. It's not anything fancy, but it will keep you off the streets, begging.

abeppu 5y ago

Just as a point of comparison, one of the programs San Francisco introduced during the pandemic was "safe sleeping sites", which are parking lots where homeless can have their tent without it being periodically swept by police. To that, they add chemical toilets, a water supply and (I'm not sure why) 24/7 security staff. For this, the city pays around $60k per tent site per year. I'm not sure if this is in part due to some unsavory relationship between the org administering the program and some city official. Recently the program was extended. It would be cheaper to rent apartments at current market rates, even in San Francisco. Our revealed preference seems to be that we'd rather have homeless people live in tents than have poor people get free or nearly free housing.

baron816 5y ago
The city is still giving out lots of housing. Except when the city tries to build housing, it takes many years and $800k per unit. The city has put up so many regulatory hurdles that make it almost impossible to build anything. Consider this project that would've added 19 housing units https://twitter.com/samdman95/status/1415839145386196993 https://twitter.com/samdman95/status/1415839145386196993. It was blocked because it would've increased shadow cover on Delores Park by .001% (as if SF has a shadow problem instead of a housing problem). There really is no point in the city trying to build housing for the homeless without addressing the regulatory issues first. If the city were to try to build housing for all its (by the official count) 8000 homeless people, it would cost >$6 billion.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  And solving the regulatory hurdles might also might start to reduce the homelessness problem before the city even starts giving away free units to anyone in need.
- malandrew 5y ago
  Relative to pretty much all other markets, it's practically impossible to solve homelessness in San Francisco. There are at least two major considerations. The first is the one you pointed out that there are far too many barriers. The second is that San Francisco is a fundamentally hard city to succeed in. Even competent folks with good educations and no real personal problems struggle to do well in San Francisco. If it is hard for such people, it's only going to be far more difficult for people without the same education and with many personal problems. With these two major constraints in mind, it boggles my mind that we continue to try and solve the problem in San Francisco, instead of directing all the resources to other markets without these constraints. Providing resources elsewhere and removing support in San Francisco will serve to incentivize the homeless to relocate to places where programs like housing first can be tried and where they have a chance of actually getting on their own two feet because they aren't in a hyper-competitive local market. Last time someone asked me to donate money to the homeless problem in San Francisco, I told them no, but then proceeded to donate money to a homeless program in another city (at the time I chose a program in Sacremento) because it's beyond stupid to keep putting money into trying to solve the problem in San Francisco if you actually want to see results from the money you spend on the problem. People working on this problem in San Francisco either have more heart than brains or they are part of the San Francisco homelessness industrial complex and have a vested interest in keeping these programs in San Francisco because they want to live in San Francisco and are employed in this industry. Social worker salaries in San Francisco are $60k to $100k a year. If you can pay for two to three social workers in other markets instead for the same price, why pay for such people to work in San Francisco.

snthd 5y ago

[2020]

Geee 5y ago

Just to clarify, in Finland housing and basic living expenses are provided for everyone who doesn't have enough income. Still, there are people who end up on the streets for some reason, and this program is aimed at helping those people.

known 5y ago

Why do we need to know about progress if we are concerned about the world’s large problems? https://ourworldindata.org/problems-and-progress https://ourworldindata.org/problems-and-progress

wirthjason 5y ago

I wish there were more in depth articles about these problems. They tend to focus on “feel good” aspects while glossing over the details and trade offs made. As I get older more and more I find that all new ideas are old ideas. As if great idea just sitting there, oblivious to everyone else, waiting for someone to pick it up. Often someone else tried the solution but it never worked. What changed? That’s what I want to know. For example, the article has a click-bait headline that makes you feel good because homelessness “ended”. Apparently homelessness was reduced, not ended. It’s a better outcome than before. > In the last 10 years, the “Housing First” program provided 4,600 homes in Finland. While in 2017 there were still about 1,900 people living on the streets, the program could reduce this number to less than 1000 long-term homeless by 2019 – but there were enough places for them in emergency shelters so that they at least didn’t have to sleep outside anymore. Also, the math is murky. The article states that the direct cost of housing is cheaper than the current expenses. It’s quite easy to figure out the cost of building new things but very difficult for those other services. > Creating housing for people costs money. In the past 10 years, 270 million euros were spent on the construction, purchase and renovation of housing as part of the “Housing First” programme. However, Juha Kaakinen points out, this is far less than the cost of homelessness itself. Because when people are in emergency situations, emergencies are more frequent: Assaults, injuries, breakdowns. The police, health care and justice systems are more often called upon to step in – and this also costs money. The first book I read that went into these complex issues was “Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell. He made convincing arguments about how economics work and how of often polices designed to help people hurt them. Rent control in NY was a policy designed to help people but actually made it worse for many.

kubb 5y ago
When and where was it tried before? <1000 homeless sounds like a success.

tcbasche 5y ago

It's definitely noticeable as a newly-adopted Helsinkian. I think I might have seen like 3 people on the street asking for change in the last couple of months. And it's the same 3 people...

timonoko 5y ago

This is what Sweden did 50 years ago. My Vespa broke down on the way to Paris. I needed money, so I just went to the Göteborg employment office and got a job and an apartment. But all this is now gone. They have huge homeless problem among older ethnic Swedes especially. Because this is HN, I wont go into details and causes and consequences...

100011 5y ago

lol at people lapping this article up to support their brainwormed political opinions. i actually live here, no homelessness has been ended.

container 5y ago
Beyond the clickbait headline, even the article didn't say it was.

kaliali 5y ago

Also they keep their borders protected from begging parasites.

HissingMachine 5y ago

This is fake news, almost nothing about this article is accurate or factual, homelessness is a problem in this country that usually is unearthed by investigative journalists because apparently we don't have homeless problem so we don't even keep an official record, but we get articles like this to pat ourselves in the back which makes this even more embarrassing. t. a 40yo finn

vladharbuz 5y ago
Could you point us to a resource where we can read more about this? Perhaps a source pointing to data being covered up?
agumonkey 5y ago
what's the general sentiment about homeless in the population ? is it more like "chase them out, i dont care" or "we would like to do something but nothing ever happens" ?
- fsloth 5y ago
  Generally finns want and expect the government to offer everyone in need free housing. When this does not happen everyone is surprised.
Popegaf 5y ago
Links of that investigative journalism would be nice to support your claims of this being fake news. The Y-Foundation exists https://ysaatio.fi/en/home https://ysaatio.fi/en/home and they have reports too. > apparently we don't have homeless problem so we don't even keep an official record There is an official record by the Housing Finance and Development Center of Finland: https://www.ara.fi/en-US/Materials/Homelessness_reports https://www.ara.fi/en-US/Materials/Homelessness_reports More information can also be found at https://housingfirsteurope.eu/countries/finland/ https://housingfirsteurope.eu/countries/finland/
svnpenn 5y ago
Saying something is fake with your only reference being your claim that "you're a Finn", is pretty much meaningless.

desktopninja 5y ago

States side: https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/18/jon-cryer-wife-lisa-joyner-donate-30k-support-tiny-homes-homeless/ https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/18/jon-cryer-wife-lisa-joyner-do... I commend this project. Also personally wish 3D printing homes be formalized, at the very least for single dwelling units. Cities can rezone for it and probably use the land better than golf courses. I'll go on to wish that each SDU is has a cost limit of 10k$ anywhere you go in the country and can only have one human owner. If the unit is to be rented out, then rent would also be capped to number that is reasonable for basic living. The idea here is every adult citizen can own a dwelling. There's may ethical things to consider but pretty optimistic we could come up with good governance policies.

kebman 5y ago

This reads like one of the silly headlines you'd see in the first iteration of Civilization. Except it's real. And heartwarming!

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

NYC has right-to-shelter laws, which prevent anyone from being denied access to a homeless shelter. If the shelter runs out of space, they will literally rent out hotels. I think this is great, and it makes me proud of my city—but frustratingly, there are still beggars on the streets, who for one reason or another have decided not to accept the city's shelter. What has Finland done differently?

flavius29663 5y ago
I think the answer is in the article. They don't just provide shelters, which have many issues on their own, they put the homeless in apartments with tenant agreements, dragging them back into society. In most of Europe there are enough shelters for the homeless, but many people avoid them, I'm guessing violence, theft and strict rules is what turns them away. For example, whenever there's a cold snap, the Romanian police is canvasing all the homeless locations and bringing everyone in shelters...I guess they prefer dealing with homeless people rather than dead bodies.
nerdponx 5y ago
NYC shelters are notoriously bad places to be. I've heard and read many times that the streets tend to be safer and more comfortable. Maybe things are good if you time it just right and get a hotel room during one of those overflow periods. I'm not sure what the solution to that issue was, but it seems to one of or the main reason why the shelter system does not work like you'd expect.

jSully24 5y ago

This is an interesting experiment in Minneapolis. I can’t find any earl results yet. What I like is it’s meant to be a transition, not permanent. https://www.freethink.com/social-change/tiny-house-village-for-homeless-people https://www.freethink.com/social-change/tiny-house-village-f...

deleted 5y ago

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saklani 5y ago

Finland be like: fuck it, lets just end homelessness by giving everyone a home.

deleted 5y ago

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yawaworht1978 5y ago

Every country should have this. Capitalism is the way to go currently, but make sure the bottom of the food chain is provided for.

PicassoCTs 5y ago

The homeless are there, to provide the lowest working-poor caste the illusion, that there is always a even lower station in life that fate could have delt them.

collaborative 5y ago

When I became homeless and broke I was lucky enough to have a friend who at the time let me use his address to apply for a job I also tried seeking help from my local authority and was told there wasn't any 2 months of work, couch surfing and eating boiled pasta got me to a stage where I could rent a room I think that for most, support is all it takes to get back on your feet

freddybobs 5y ago

There is a good episode about homelessness in the US on the 'You're wrong about' podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/homelessness/id1380008439?i=1000465289894 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/homelessness/id1380008... In it they cite studies that show that efforts in the US somewhat similar to this Finland program are generally very successful, and typically cheaper overall compared to not having such programs.

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