11 ms·

Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

191 points by zdw 4y ago

ip26 4y ago
Utah had a similar outcome; house the homeless, and improve 80% of cases. I still bristle at the description “virtually end homelessness” - you buy them free housing and 20% still remain unhoused, is that “solved”? What happens next? What more can you do?
- kqr 4y ago
  It's a bit unclear exactly what the 80 % figure measures, but according to TFA it's the lower bound of the fraction of people who got housing fully subsidised and is now pays their rent independently. Given that the homeless include people with serious problems, that only at most 20 % need ongoing subsidising sounds like a huge win to me.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    The 80% seems to exclude people who need subsidies, but also those who moved out of the rental market entirely.
- Puts 4y ago
  It's not fully clear from the article if that 20% didn't manage to keep the housing at all or if it was just that they didn't manage to pay their own rent. To me 80% sounds awesome. There are some people in this world that just wasn't built to cope with life. But they are still part of society and there needs to be a place for them too.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  The Utah success article was written in 2017, in 2022 its like that never happened. https://www.kuer.org/business-economy/2022-10-12/salt-lake-citys-2-year-increase-in-homeless-is-reflected-across-the-west https://www.kuer.org/business-economy/2022-10-12/salt-lake-c... and they have a plan to take it serious again https://www.ksl.com/article/50599199/utah-unveils-aggressive-plan-to-address-homelessness-statewide https://www.ksl.com/article/50599199/utah-unveils-aggressive...
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  First article I found said the SLC program was successful for 95% of those placed in a home. IIRC, the housing first program in Seattle was similarly effective. I agree that it’s not as exhaustive as some of the more boastful claims, but I think the better question to ask is why these programs have been cut in favor of far less effective and far more expensive ones.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    Effective at what? I lived near a motel that was part of a “housing first” initiative in SF. People treated the hotel like home base, and still spent their nights howling. I had to move the screaming was so loud. Not to mention the drugs, human trafficking, etc. In terms of environment, it didn’t deduce things like human feces on the street. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but the neighborhood was mostly unlivable. That’s not a real solution.
    - tfourb 4y ago
      Good housing first programs do not cluster beneficiaries but try to integrate them into "normal" neighborhoods and provide them with ongoing support by social workers, medical attention, etc. Just dumping a couple of dozen homeless people in a motel is not a great way to approach this, I agree.
      - pyuser583 4y ago
        NY requires low income housing to be distributed among middle-class neighborhoods. It’s helpful, but creates massive backlogs. Plenty of homeless people are on waiting lists. It makes it impossible to convert money into housing. You have to wait until you find a vacancy in middle class neighborhood. They can’t just buy a place and put people there - which is how housing usually works.
        tfourb 4y ago
        Why can't they? Municipality-owned housing is a thing in many places around the world and is generally cost-covering even when rented out to low-income housesholds. In many places (i.e. Germany and Austria), even some of the most desirable middle-income housing is owned by local governments so it's nothing that has to come with stigma attached to it. Housing always needs planning permission and that is something local governments have huge sway over. You can easily imagine that to get planning permission, developers have to cede 15% of the land to the local municipality or have to construct housing that has 25 years of priority for municipality-nominated tenants. It has been done.
bboygravity 4y ago
If you're literally homeless in Finland you would die during winter season? Could that be a contributing factor to the "success"?
- 6nf 4y ago
  Is this not true in many US cities too?
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    There is a reason west coast cities are the most popular greyhound destinations.
    - IOT_Apprentice 4y ago
      In the US, many states put homelessness people on buses to western states like California. They don’t want to deal with them in their own states and then complain about how NY and especially California have dirty streets and homeless problems. The cognitive ignorance is amazing. The US has many institutional problems in sectors that impact life. No nationalized healthcare, very short training of police officers with no federal standards & longer programs as they have in the EU or other industrialized nations. We have a prison industrial complex where we imprison more people than ANY other country. And we now have a fully broken political system. Between Citizens United unleashing unlimited dark money & a 2 party system where it is more important NOT to do anything involving improving things other than tax cuts for our wealthiest. Homelessness due to unemployment, bankruptcy, medical bankruptcy or mental/psychological issues are obvious results. There is tremendous room for improvement across all areas, but there is too much institutional & corporate influence in maintaining the status quo.
      - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        A lot of states/charities will give people open tickets so they can get “home” but they don’t verify that it’s really their home, so it’s just used to go where they want, which is often the west coast during winter or really any time. The bus is also cheap enough that you can scrounge up some money for a ticket in a few days. Vancouver is a mirror of Seattle in its homeless problem, the Canadians handle it better, but the underlying issues are very similar, so it’s not like the USA is fairly special in this regard.
pavlov 4y ago
This Guardian story gives more detail on how the program works: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... Common objections to applying this policy elsewhere seem to be “We’re bigger than Finland” and “We’re not ethnically homogenous like Finland.” On the first point, 5M people isn’t really that small. It’s roughly the median population of an American state. On the second point, well… It does sound a lot like “minorities don’t deserve housing”. I don’t know how it’s supposed to be a blocker.
- ddoolin 4y ago
  Just IMO, many Americans probably don't think homeless people deserve free housing, because they have (the taxpayers) have to pay for their own housing and also contribute to homeless housing via taxes. "Fuck you got mine" is real here. Just see the nauseating argument against discharging student loans.
  - tempestn 4y ago
    Even from a selfish perspective, I expect "solving" homelessness would ultimately save money for taxpayers, when you consider all of the police and healthcare resources that go into it now, as well as the negative effects on communities. But it would take a lot of time and consistent effort to get there, and the costs would be a lot more obvious and direct than the benefits. Not sure I agree on student loans though. The main reason I struggle with that one is because it seems to me to be a regressive policy: most people with student loans (though certainly not all) are better off that people who didn't have the opportunity to pursue higher education at all. So forgiving student loans benefits a chunk of the population, but does nothing for those who are even more in need (some of whom might have chosen a different path if they'd known they could have their debts forgiven). I'd rather see policies that can benefit everyone in financial need proportionally.
    - Timon3 4y ago
      This kind of selfishness is not about yourself getting more, it's about others getting less. As harsh as it sounds, this is the center of many political ideas. This is what happens when you start from "we should do X", instead of "I want things to be Y, so let's find out how to best get there". Just think about the droves of people fighting to teach abstinence in schools, although studies have shown time and time again it leads to more abortions!
SanderNL 4y ago
I don’t know about Finland, but Dutch people already can’t find places to live. If you are unlucky financially and need government housing you will wait years if not a decade or more for something. If you can rent something you will pay €1000 for a modest place in a bad neighborhood. Given that a fair chunk of the population earns in the €1500-2000 range, that’s not a good prospect. Housing is not just something you give away that easily (anymore, if ever).
- riffraff 4y ago
  Worth noting: population density for all of the Netherlands 532/km^2. The highest density in Finland, in the Greater Helsinki area, is 421.8/km^2. Finland does have a lot more space. Still, Paris has a density of 690/km^2 and is not a hellscape, so the choice of not having more housing (and pushing down RE prices) is political, not a deity-given rule.
  - imgabe 4y ago
    You're comparing two countries to a city. Paris has the rest of France for people to live in.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    But Paris absolutely has the housing issues described by GP. More and more "middle-class" people are moving out of the city, especially those with children. Schools are starting to close classes for lack of pupils. There is a lot of government-subsidized housing, but it's very tough to get any if you actually make some money. They mostly go to the poorest, of which there are many. Waiting lists are long (think multiple years). Private sector housing is very expensive and landlords won't rent to you if you don't make three times the rent and have a long-term contract. 1000 € a month would get you a studio apartment, yet require you to make 3000 € a month. That's "a good salary". Want to buy? Nah. With 3000 € a month, you better have a serious down payment (rich parents, I guess?), or banks won't lend you a cent. You figured being freelance would net you a better income? Sure, but guess what? That's not "stable employment", so banks will laugh you out the door. You also won't qualify for the landlord insurance scheme if you resign to rent, so better know someone with a stable contract who'll cosign for you.
TMWNN 4y ago
The city of San Francisco spends $70,000 annually per homeless person! <https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-francisco-supervisor-rafael-mandelman/12760671/ https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci...> The homeless there are homeless because severe mental and addiction issues cause them to reject help, not because resources aren't available.
- misja111 4y ago
  Also they can remain homeless because of the climate. In Finland they would simply freeze to death.
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    > Also they can remain homeless because of the climate. Weather is part of the reason, but not the most important one. If it were, San Diego would have a worse homeless problem than San Francisco. The most important difference is that the city of San Diego spends one third as much as San Francisco per homeless person. ($46.8 million in city spending[1] for an estimated 1900 homeless.[2]) San Francisco has an enormous homeless-industrial complex that uses every virtue-signaling, heart-tugging propaganda tool at its disposal to increase the flow of money thrown into its bottomless maw, despite no metric ever improving one bit whatsoever. [1] <https://www.lajollalight.com/news/story/2023-04-15/san-diego-mayors-proposed-budget-includes-millions-more-to-address-homelessness-and-streets https://www.lajollalight.com/news/story/2023-04-15/san-diego...> [2] <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-07/downtown-homeless-population-reaches-another-high https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-07/downtown...> [3] [3] The count is only of the homeless in downtown San Diego. While presumably most homeless San Diegans are there, just as there are very few San Franciscans living on the sidewalk in Pac Heights, the point is that a larger number would mean that much less spending per homeless person in the city as a whole, and that much more glaring a discrepancy between the two cities.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  The reasons vary a lot. There really are different “types” of homeless.
- 4y ago
charcircuit 4y ago
If this has an 80% success rate we could give loans to the homeless so they can buy a house and price that success rate into the interest rate.
- mjevans 4y ago
  That won't magically make enough housing appear on the market. Many of the major cities where jobs can be found have a chronic shortage of housing, at all levels of value. We need to build housing like there's a WAR effort, like there's an actual battle against homelessness by building enough homes for everyone who wants to live in an area. NIMBY and 'sense of character' are the major issues that prevent this, along with the perverse incentive of existing residents to prefer the rising 'value' of their house due to artificial market scarcity.
  - bilqis 4y ago
    This won’t happen under current state of capitalistic systems. No-one will fund this for sole purpose of public good.
    - rocketbop 4y ago
      It seems like this is true, and depressingly short term thinking on the part of governments. Social housing can be an asset for the state, and if not profitable at least less costly in the long term than current piecemeal approaches.
    - negidius 4y ago
      There are a plenty of people who want to build more housing, and they would make a lot of money doing that if it wasn't illegal. The problem is not capitalism, it's statism.
      - bilqis 4y ago
        When you’re building housing to make profit, you’re not doing it for public good, you’re doing it to extract profits. And housing problem exists in places other than USA, with wildly different policies.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
I lived in Finland for a while. Being homeless in that country is pretty hard core in the winter. Which is a reason that sheltering people there is not a nice to have; you either shelter them or you collect their dead bodies in the morning. It's that simple. Places like Helsinki never had a large community of homeless people to begin with (natural selection). But it has plenty of social issues of course. Alcoholism is a big problem for example and there probably are lots of issues with drug usage and mental health as well. However, it's not a country with a lot of illegal immigration, or a lot refugees with ambiguous legal status. I.e. the vast majority of problematic people are all citizens that have full coverage under the excellent social system. So, they are insured and probably are entitled to some form of income. And the locals are very pragmatic about it not being desirable to have drunk homeless people passing out and freezing to death in the winter. So, they never had a huge problem with homeless people to begin with and what little homeless people they had were take care off via shelters and other solutions already. The "innovation" in Finland was realizing that simply providing proper housing to these people is a pragmatic alternative that actually improves their situation while lowering overall cost at the same time. Shelters cost money and they have to be staffed and when they fill up you need to spend money on emergency shelters, which costs more money. And shelters perpetuate the problem. So, providing housing lowers cost and you get a meaningful percentage of people to a level where they stop being a problem. Which frees up more resources to deal with the remaining people more effectively. And it's nice to see people get out of such a situation. Win win. That's definitely something other countries can learn from.
- UberFly 4y ago
  "simply providing proper housing to these people is a pragmatic alternative" Did this "proper housing" come with any rules? What is the bar that keeps the homeless from being evicted? I know where I am these places quickly become severe crime hubs.
  - tempestn 4y ago
    It definitely requires a lot of support, especially initially, to be successful; indeed, just providing the residence isn't enough. And of course not all homeless people are the same. Some are simply having a rough time and really do just need that leg up. Others are struggling with substance abuse, mental illness, or mental or physical disability, and will at a minimum need support to transition to a stable living situation, but may become self-sufficient (or at least more-so) over time with that support. Others will need significant ongoing support lifelong, and so independent living won't be a viable option. Lumping all these people together exacerbates problems.
eripaha 4y ago
There is about 900 homeless people in Helsinki (pop. 631 000), about 90% of them are Men.
01100011 4y ago
Does Finland have a problem with Mexican cartel meth and fentanyl being dumped by the truckloads into its communities? To be clear, there are many types of homeless in the US. But the ones that get the most attention and seem to cause the most problems are those pushed into mental illness by drug use. And, yes, drug use does not always cause mental illness and many mentally ill are not on drugs, but as those of us with direct experience with meth and other 'hard' drug users can attest to, a meth habit is not conducive to mental wellness. There is an acute phase of reality detachment that gets better with cessation, but even then, the hard core meth addicts I've known have mental scars that linger indefinitely.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- exDM69 4y ago
  Yes, most of the homelessness in Finland is driven by substance abuse and mental illness too. It's mostly alcohol, amphetamines (meth included), buprenorfine and benzos from Eastern European organized crime and fentanyl is not as common, but the landscape is similar.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    if you don't have fentanyl you have no clue what the problem is.
    - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
      Benzos are more addictive and far harder to get off off than fentanyl.
- 27fingies 4y ago
  > Does Finland have a problem with Mexican cartel meth and fentanyl being dumped by the truckloads into its communities? All I hear are excuses
- obscurette 4y ago
domatic1 4y ago
In Finland if you cannot find work the government will pay you enough money to rent an apartment and eat. Most "homeless" in the streets of Finland are alcoholics, in summer you can see them roaming in the streets, in the winter they are in shelters.
bjarneh 4y ago
> And that led to an insight: people tend to function better when they’re not living on the street or under a bridge. Who would have guessed? Reminds me of the old Fran Lebowitz bit about homelessness, where she says they insist on calling it homelessness, since that makes it sound unsolvable. You really can't buy people a home. If they called it houselessness it would be too easily solvable.
- draugadrotten 4y ago
  > If they called it houselessness it would be too easily solvable. Only if one believes that the lack of a home or a house is the root cause of the individuals problem. A drug addict provided with a house as a home will turn that house into a cesspit in very short time. The drug addict does not clean, does not take out the trash, does not repair. The drug addict will invite other drug addicts to the house, essentially turning it into what is called a drug house. The house can no longer be lived in, and it stops being a home. Now, is that really helping anyone? No, it is not. Helping homeless people is a noble cause and should be done - Finland is doing good there. Helping SF drug addicts is a noble cause and should be done - but not by giving them a free house. They need help with their drug addiction first and foremost. Having somewhere to shelter while they get that help is a necessary part of the solution but it is the solution. Mental issues and drug addiction frequently overlaps but otherwise the same argument applies. Help needs to be directed on the root cause and issues and homelessness is a symptom, not a cause. You disruptors out there, get going. Where is the unicorn hidden here?
  - exDM69 4y ago
    > Only if one believes that the lack of a home or a house is the root cause of the individuals problem. Homelessness may not be the root cause, but it effectively prevents one from having a normal life. One is unable to help oneself if they spend all of their time, money and effort staying warm, fed and safe. > A drug addict provided with a house as a home will turn that house into a cesspit in very short time. The drug addict does not clean, does not take out the trash, does not repair. The drug addict will invite other drug addicts to the house, essentially turning it into what is called a drug house. The house can no longer be lived in, and it stops being a home. If you do this you get evicted from normal housing. Which is why the supported "housing first" initiative apartment blocks come with rules, social workers, etc. Typically they tolerate substance abuse but have restrictions on number of visitors, visiting hours, etc. > Helping SF drug addicts is a noble cause and should be done - but not by giving them a free house. They need help with their drug addiction first and foremost. Having somewhere to shelter while they get that help is a necessary part of the solution but it is the solution. It's is extremely difficult to try to get out of substance abuse or mental illness issues when living rough. This is exactly why the paradigm of giving housing first exists. Previous attempts at helping the homeless with substance abuse and mental health were fruitless. All the money and effort put into that had very poor results. Give the keys to a normal apartment to an addict and they'll be doing drugs instead of paying rent and back on the streets in a few months. Housing first, addressing problems second was found to be much more effective. This was researched extensively. About 80% of people given supported housing get out of homelessness [0]. That's a massive difference to earlier "shelter only" model of social support for the homeless. [0] https://www.hdl.fi/blog/asunto-ensin-tavoitteena-pysyva-asuminen/ https://www.hdl.fi/blog/asunto-ensin-tavoitteena-pysyva-asum...
silisili 4y ago
I've lived all over the US. Sometimes, homeless are down on luck. These are mostly the invisible type, that you may not even know exist. Then you have the crazies. Mostly harmless, but not productive in society so much, so kinda outcast. Then you have the grifters. Harmless mostly, enterprising folk. They're out there playing fake violins in parking lots with their family. And staking out busy offramps with their signs. My city now has mostly the drugged type. These are the worst, they are aggressive, hateful, and many times violent. I've seen people ask for money, then spend a few seconds sizing me up before just going about their day. For reference, I'm a huge guy, and I'd feel sorry for normal folks in those situations. One beheaded a woman in the parking lot of a Kohl's last year, for example. The city has mostly given up, and are building them little drug dens downtown so they'll stop bothering everyone, hopefully. It's easy to say you want to be compassionate, and look for solutions. After living in it with the aggressive type, I honestly wish the cops would just billy club them and ship them off elsewhere. I absolutely want to help anyone down on their luck and trying. And the crazies. And I feel sorry for them getting grouped in with the other category of folk. It's not simple to compare homeless across a single city, much less different cities, much less different countries. There aren't a lot of lessons to be learned between the three or four types.
- kstenerud 4y ago
  Any solution not currently being employed couldn't work because the local issues are different in some nebulous way, and it would require careful study before making a hasty move, and there are all these special cases that are different, and it just couldn't work so we should give up because nothing will ever work even if it has worked elsewhere, and just club them all to death instead.
  - silisili 4y ago
    This is so dismissive. We have to admit and analyze the reasons for homelessness before we attempt a solution. Sometimes, people who do everything right end up homeless due to illness, rising rents, death in the family, or any multitude of reasons. If we gave these people free housing and resources, they'd likely bounce back and be fine. If we mix in folks who are drugged out beyond belief, who are violent, who have no desire to improve, it taints the entire project. Do you want to put a family of 4 trying to get by next door to some shirtless guy with a machete who constantly threatens to stab everyone? Why? Now all the neighbors complain, crime goes up, etc. It's time to admit some people either aren't worth helping, or at least can't be helped in the way that others can.
bandrami 4y ago
it's interesting that Americans all seem to assume the US has a horrible homelessness problem when it actually has a pretty low homelessness rate by OECD standards (and for that matter Finland got the idea from a US municipal program). It's like half the UK rate and a third of the German rate, and thats even with the US using a broader definition of "homeless" than UK or DE.
lynx23 4y ago
Whats wrong about "almost ended" or, "vastly reduced"? I feel manipulated when I see "virtually ended".
bubba_sparks 4y ago
Can we send all our homeless in America to Finland?
timonoko 4y ago
As luck would have it, I took pictures of last ever homeless abode in Helsinki 2005. It was destroyed soon after. It is totally functional all-year-round, with good sleeping bag and oil-lamp quite comfortable. https://photos.app.goo.gl/MqwRWdgkN0oynyTw1 https://photos.app.goo.gl/MqwRWdgkN0oynyTw1 I personally would not move from this abode to Helsinki Mäkelänkatu homeless shelter, full of creepy drugheads and violent drunks.
- timonoko 4y ago
  It took only 3 guesses for ChatGPT to get close to the correct answer. Google was hopeless. -- I believe the correct translation for "sissimajoite" from Finnish to English is "guerrilla camouflage". "Sissi" means "guerrilla" or "insurgent", and "majoite" refers to "camouflage" or "camouflaging".
anonzzzies 4y ago
It looks like Finland is similar to my country in this respect; homeless people don’t need to be homeless in the first place as, even if everything falls down (financially or (whatever)abuse wise), they still are entitled to state support. They get state housing, but here, at least in the summer, I know quite a few who choose to sleep on the streets anyway. They have mental illnesses (they get help for) and they like begging (wearing clean clothes mostly) as a means of socialising (that’s how I got to know them; they come over when you sit at bars and when you don’t give money right away they start talking). The problem is generally not comparable to some other countries; if you do see horrible scenes like in some US neighbourhoods (drug zombies, crack prostitutes, drug dealers, violence), they are extremely rare here and almost exclusively involve a tiny group of illegal immigrants. They are usually removed pretty quickly and, presumably, taken to an immigrant center (where they get beds and food) to be processed for either legal immigration or redirected to their home country.
moomoo11 4y ago
Are the homeless in Finland hooked on fentanyl and various other hard drugs? Is half of their homeless population suffering from mental illness (stemming from and made worse by the psychosis from the hard drug use)? Do they have an illegal immigration problem? Is there a perverse incentive for politicians and their families to profit off suffering? The situation in the US imo is not at all equatable to most of the world. Hell I grew up in a third world country without running water and spotty electricity. Saw poverty like you wouldn’t believe but never saw junkies or thugs like you do in SF. I was walking around Market St and saw people dealing drugs and people just drugged out of their minds laying flat on the sidewalks. Horrible. Not to mention all the trash, graffiti, and other waste while brightly lit multi million/billion dollar tech company logos shine brightly above. America needs to become a stern father at some point and just set their kid right. First get clean and clear minded, we have too many fools that have been voted into power by even bigger fools. Or maybe it’s just a SF/big city loony tune.
- vidarh 4y ago
  The point of the Finnish experience, and plenty of evidence from elsewhere, is that you're far more likely to address drug abuse (yes, the Nordic countries also have drug problems) and other problems once people are housed. The US exceptionalism is almost always a cop-out. For a country that is supposedly so advanced, a shockingly high proportion of Americans seem convinced you can't possibly solve anything.
  - danaris 4y ago
    "We're the best country in the world, so if there were a way, we would have found it already! The problem still exists, so obviously it's not solvable!"
  - moomoo11 4y ago
    I think it’s due to the fact that there’s no “honor” system or any homogeneity in the population. I’m a naturalized citizen and US is my one and only home. It’s sad that half the people I meet seem to hate living here and even hate their own country. When I was in Japan there was a massive rainfall and Kyoto station was flooding. I saw a bunch of old people appear out of nowhere wearing bright vests and helping to remove the mud and water. I found out they were elderly volunteers and that it’s just something Japanese people do there. In the US I feel like it’s so rare to see that kind of unity unless it’s a situation already dialed to 11. The investor class in the US treats people here like cattle. And the cattle all know they’re fucked unless they can elevate into the investor class.
jaclaz 4y ago
OT, but not much, a very nice movie, a bit strange but interesting is The Man Without a Past by Aki Kaurismäki, that "touches" a similar theme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Kaurism%C3%A4ki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Kaurism%C3%A4ki
jokoon 4y ago
article 25 of the declaration of human rights talks about right to shelter and food

191 points by zdw 4y ago

ip26 4y ago

Utah had a similar outcome; house the homeless, and improve 80% of cases. I still bristle at the description “virtually end homelessness” - you buy them free housing and 20% still remain unhoused, is that “solved”? What happens next? What more can you do?

kqr 4y ago
It's a bit unclear exactly what the 80 % figure measures, but according to TFA it's the lower bound of the fraction of people who got housing fully subsidised and is now pays their rent independently. Given that the homeless include people with serious problems, that only at most 20 % need ongoing subsidising sounds like a huge win to me.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  The 80% seems to exclude people who need subsidies, but also those who moved out of the rental market entirely.
Puts 4y ago
It's not fully clear from the article if that 20% didn't manage to keep the housing at all or if it was just that they didn't manage to pay their own rent. To me 80% sounds awesome. There are some people in this world that just wasn't built to cope with life. But they are still part of society and there needs to be a place for them too.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
The Utah success article was written in 2017, in 2022 its like that never happened. https://www.kuer.org/business-economy/2022-10-12/salt-lake-citys-2-year-increase-in-homeless-is-reflected-across-the-west https://www.kuer.org/business-economy/2022-10-12/salt-lake-c... and they have a plan to take it serious again https://www.ksl.com/article/50599199/utah-unveils-aggressive-plan-to-address-homelessness-statewide https://www.ksl.com/article/50599199/utah-unveils-aggressive...
eyelidlessness 4y ago
First article I found said the SLC program was successful for 95% of those placed in a home. IIRC, the housing first program in Seattle was similarly effective. I agree that it’s not as exhaustive as some of the more boastful claims, but I think the better question to ask is why these programs have been cut in favor of far less effective and far more expensive ones.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Effective at what? I lived near a motel that was part of a “housing first” initiative in SF. People treated the hotel like home base, and still spent their nights howling. I had to move the screaming was so loud. Not to mention the drugs, human trafficking, etc. In terms of environment, it didn’t deduce things like human feces on the street. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but the neighborhood was mostly unlivable. That’s not a real solution.
  - tfourb 4y ago
    Good housing first programs do not cluster beneficiaries but try to integrate them into "normal" neighborhoods and provide them with ongoing support by social workers, medical attention, etc. Just dumping a couple of dozen homeless people in a motel is not a great way to approach this, I agree.
    - pyuser583 4y ago
      NY requires low income housing to be distributed among middle-class neighborhoods. It’s helpful, but creates massive backlogs. Plenty of homeless people are on waiting lists. It makes it impossible to convert money into housing. You have to wait until you find a vacancy in middle class neighborhood. They can’t just buy a place and put people there - which is how housing usually works.
      - tfourb 4y ago
        Why can't they? Municipality-owned housing is a thing in many places around the world and is generally cost-covering even when rented out to low-income housesholds. In many places (i.e. Germany and Austria), even some of the most desirable middle-income housing is owned by local governments so it's nothing that has to come with stigma attached to it. Housing always needs planning permission and that is something local governments have huge sway over. You can easily imagine that to get planning permission, developers have to cede 15% of the land to the local municipality or have to construct housing that has 25 years of priority for municipality-nominated tenants. It has been done.

bboygravity 4y ago

If you're literally homeless in Finland you would die during winter season? Could that be a contributing factor to the "success"?

6nf 4y ago
Is this not true in many US cities too?
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  There is a reason west coast cities are the most popular greyhound destinations.
  - IOT_Apprentice 4y ago
    In the US, many states put homelessness people on buses to western states like California. They don’t want to deal with them in their own states and then complain about how NY and especially California have dirty streets and homeless problems. The cognitive ignorance is amazing. The US has many institutional problems in sectors that impact life. No nationalized healthcare, very short training of police officers with no federal standards & longer programs as they have in the EU or other industrialized nations. We have a prison industrial complex where we imprison more people than ANY other country. And we now have a fully broken political system. Between Citizens United unleashing unlimited dark money & a 2 party system where it is more important NOT to do anything involving improving things other than tax cuts for our wealthiest. Homelessness due to unemployment, bankruptcy, medical bankruptcy or mental/psychological issues are obvious results. There is tremendous room for improvement across all areas, but there is too much institutional & corporate influence in maintaining the status quo.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      A lot of states/charities will give people open tickets so they can get “home” but they don’t verify that it’s really their home, so it’s just used to go where they want, which is often the west coast during winter or really any time. The bus is also cheap enough that you can scrounge up some money for a ticket in a few days. Vancouver is a mirror of Seattle in its homeless problem, the Canadians handle it better, but the underlying issues are very similar, so it’s not like the USA is fairly special in this regard.

pavlov 4y ago

This Guardian story gives more detail on how the program works: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... Common objections to applying this policy elsewhere seem to be “We’re bigger than Finland” and “We’re not ethnically homogenous like Finland.” On the first point, 5M people isn’t really that small. It’s roughly the median population of an American state. On the second point, well… It does sound a lot like “minorities don’t deserve housing”. I don’t know how it’s supposed to be a blocker.

ddoolin 4y ago
Just IMO, many Americans probably don't think homeless people deserve free housing, because they have (the taxpayers) have to pay for their own housing and also contribute to homeless housing via taxes. "Fuck you got mine" is real here. Just see the nauseating argument against discharging student loans.
- tempestn 4y ago
  Even from a selfish perspective, I expect "solving" homelessness would ultimately save money for taxpayers, when you consider all of the police and healthcare resources that go into it now, as well as the negative effects on communities. But it would take a lot of time and consistent effort to get there, and the costs would be a lot more obvious and direct than the benefits. Not sure I agree on student loans though. The main reason I struggle with that one is because it seems to me to be a regressive policy: most people with student loans (though certainly not all) are better off that people who didn't have the opportunity to pursue higher education at all. So forgiving student loans benefits a chunk of the population, but does nothing for those who are even more in need (some of whom might have chosen a different path if they'd known they could have their debts forgiven). I'd rather see policies that can benefit everyone in financial need proportionally.
  - Timon3 4y ago
    This kind of selfishness is not about yourself getting more, it's about others getting less. As harsh as it sounds, this is the center of many political ideas. This is what happens when you start from "we should do X", instead of "I want things to be Y, so let's find out how to best get there". Just think about the droves of people fighting to teach abstinence in schools, although studies have shown time and time again it leads to more abortions!

SanderNL 4y ago

I don’t know about Finland, but Dutch people already can’t find places to live. If you are unlucky financially and need government housing you will wait years if not a decade or more for something. If you can rent something you will pay €1000 for a modest place in a bad neighborhood. Given that a fair chunk of the population earns in the €1500-2000 range, that’s not a good prospect. Housing is not just something you give away that easily (anymore, if ever).

riffraff 4y ago
Worth noting: population density for all of the Netherlands 532/km^2. The highest density in Finland, in the Greater Helsinki area, is 421.8/km^2. Finland does have a lot more space. Still, Paris has a density of 690/km^2 and is not a hellscape, so the choice of not having more housing (and pushing down RE prices) is political, not a deity-given rule.
- imgabe 4y ago
  You're comparing two countries to a city. Paris has the rest of France for people to live in.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  But Paris absolutely has the housing issues described by GP. More and more "middle-class" people are moving out of the city, especially those with children. Schools are starting to close classes for lack of pupils. There is a lot of government-subsidized housing, but it's very tough to get any if you actually make some money. They mostly go to the poorest, of which there are many. Waiting lists are long (think multiple years). Private sector housing is very expensive and landlords won't rent to you if you don't make three times the rent and have a long-term contract. 1000 € a month would get you a studio apartment, yet require you to make 3000 € a month. That's "a good salary". Want to buy? Nah. With 3000 € a month, you better have a serious down payment (rich parents, I guess?), or banks won't lend you a cent. You figured being freelance would net you a better income? Sure, but guess what? That's not "stable employment", so banks will laugh you out the door. You also won't qualify for the landlord insurance scheme if you resign to rent, so better know someone with a stable contract who'll cosign for you.

TMWNN 4y ago

The city of San Francisco spends $70,000 annually per homeless person! <https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-francisco-supervisor-rafael-mandelman/12760671/ https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci...> The homeless there are homeless because severe mental and addiction issues cause them to reject help, not because resources aren't available.

misja111 4y ago
Also they can remain homeless because of the climate. In Finland they would simply freeze to death.
- TMWNN 4y ago
  > Also they can remain homeless because of the climate. Weather is part of the reason, but not the most important one. If it were, San Diego would have a worse homeless problem than San Francisco. The most important difference is that the city of San Diego spends one third as much as San Francisco per homeless person. ($46.8 million in city spending[1] for an estimated 1900 homeless.[2]) San Francisco has an enormous homeless-industrial complex that uses every virtue-signaling, heart-tugging propaganda tool at its disposal to increase the flow of money thrown into its bottomless maw, despite no metric ever improving one bit whatsoever. [1] <https://www.lajollalight.com/news/story/2023-04-15/san-diego-mayors-proposed-budget-includes-millions-more-to-address-homelessness-and-streets https://www.lajollalight.com/news/story/2023-04-15/san-diego...> [2] <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-07/downtown-homeless-population-reaches-another-high https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-07/downtown...> [3] [3] The count is only of the homeless in downtown San Diego. While presumably most homeless San Diegans are there, just as there are very few San Franciscans living on the sidewalk in Pac Heights, the point is that a larger number would mean that much less spending per homeless person in the city as a whole, and that much more glaring a discrepancy between the two cities.
pyuser583 4y ago
The reasons vary a lot. There really are different “types” of homeless.
4y ago

charcircuit 4y ago

If this has an 80% success rate we could give loans to the homeless so they can buy a house and price that success rate into the interest rate.

mjevans 4y ago
That won't magically make enough housing appear on the market. Many of the major cities where jobs can be found have a chronic shortage of housing, at all levels of value. We need to build housing like there's a WAR effort, like there's an actual battle against homelessness by building enough homes for everyone who wants to live in an area. NIMBY and 'sense of character' are the major issues that prevent this, along with the perverse incentive of existing residents to prefer the rising 'value' of their house due to artificial market scarcity.
- bilqis 4y ago
  This won’t happen under current state of capitalistic systems. No-one will fund this for sole purpose of public good.
  - rocketbop 4y ago
    It seems like this is true, and depressingly short term thinking on the part of governments. Social housing can be an asset for the state, and if not profitable at least less costly in the long term than current piecemeal approaches.
  - negidius 4y ago
    There are a plenty of people who want to build more housing, and they would make a lot of money doing that if it wasn't illegal. The problem is not capitalism, it's statism.
    - bilqis 4y ago
      When you’re building housing to make profit, you’re not doing it for public good, you’re doing it to extract profits. And housing problem exists in places other than USA, with wildly different policies.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

I lived in Finland for a while. Being homeless in that country is pretty hard core in the winter. Which is a reason that sheltering people there is not a nice to have; you either shelter them or you collect their dead bodies in the morning. It's that simple. Places like Helsinki never had a large community of homeless people to begin with (natural selection). But it has plenty of social issues of course. Alcoholism is a big problem for example and there probably are lots of issues with drug usage and mental health as well. However, it's not a country with a lot of illegal immigration, or a lot refugees with ambiguous legal status. I.e. the vast majority of problematic people are all citizens that have full coverage under the excellent social system. So, they are insured and probably are entitled to some form of income. And the locals are very pragmatic about it not being desirable to have drunk homeless people passing out and freezing to death in the winter. So, they never had a huge problem with homeless people to begin with and what little homeless people they had were take care off via shelters and other solutions already. The "innovation" in Finland was realizing that simply providing proper housing to these people is a pragmatic alternative that actually improves their situation while lowering overall cost at the same time. Shelters cost money and they have to be staffed and when they fill up you need to spend money on emergency shelters, which costs more money. And shelters perpetuate the problem. So, providing housing lowers cost and you get a meaningful percentage of people to a level where they stop being a problem. Which frees up more resources to deal with the remaining people more effectively. And it's nice to see people get out of such a situation. Win win. That's definitely something other countries can learn from.

UberFly 4y ago
"simply providing proper housing to these people is a pragmatic alternative" Did this "proper housing" come with any rules? What is the bar that keeps the homeless from being evicted? I know where I am these places quickly become severe crime hubs.
- tempestn 4y ago
  It definitely requires a lot of support, especially initially, to be successful; indeed, just providing the residence isn't enough. And of course not all homeless people are the same. Some are simply having a rough time and really do just need that leg up. Others are struggling with substance abuse, mental illness, or mental or physical disability, and will at a minimum need support to transition to a stable living situation, but may become self-sufficient (or at least more-so) over time with that support. Others will need significant ongoing support lifelong, and so independent living won't be a viable option. Lumping all these people together exacerbates problems.

eripaha 4y ago

There is about 900 homeless people in Helsinki (pop. 631 000), about 90% of them are Men.

01100011 4y ago

Does Finland have a problem with Mexican cartel meth and fentanyl being dumped by the truckloads into its communities? To be clear, there are many types of homeless in the US. But the ones that get the most attention and seem to cause the most problems are those pushed into mental illness by drug use. And, yes, drug use does not always cause mental illness and many mentally ill are not on drugs, but as those of us with direct experience with meth and other 'hard' drug users can attest to, a meth habit is not conducive to mental wellness. There is an acute phase of reality detachment that gets better with cessation, but even then, the hard core meth addicts I've known have mental scars that linger indefinitely.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
exDM69 4y ago
Yes, most of the homelessness in Finland is driven by substance abuse and mental illness too. It's mostly alcohol, amphetamines (meth included), buprenorfine and benzos from Eastern European organized crime and fentanyl is not as common, but the landscape is similar.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  if you don't have fentanyl you have no clue what the problem is.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    Benzos are more addictive and far harder to get off off than fentanyl.
27fingies 4y ago
> Does Finland have a problem with Mexican cartel meth and fentanyl being dumped by the truckloads into its communities? All I hear are excuses
obscurette 4y ago

domatic1 4y ago

In Finland if you cannot find work the government will pay you enough money to rent an apartment and eat. Most "homeless" in the streets of Finland are alcoholics, in summer you can see them roaming in the streets, in the winter they are in shelters.

bjarneh 4y ago

> And that led to an insight: people tend to function better when they’re not living on the street or under a bridge. Who would have guessed? Reminds me of the old Fran Lebowitz bit about homelessness, where she says they insist on calling it homelessness, since that makes it sound unsolvable. You really can't buy people a home. If they called it houselessness it would be too easily solvable.

draugadrotten 4y ago
> If they called it houselessness it would be too easily solvable. Only if one believes that the lack of a home or a house is the root cause of the individuals problem. A drug addict provided with a house as a home will turn that house into a cesspit in very short time. The drug addict does not clean, does not take out the trash, does not repair. The drug addict will invite other drug addicts to the house, essentially turning it into what is called a drug house. The house can no longer be lived in, and it stops being a home. Now, is that really helping anyone? No, it is not. Helping homeless people is a noble cause and should be done - Finland is doing good there. Helping SF drug addicts is a noble cause and should be done - but not by giving them a free house. They need help with their drug addiction first and foremost. Having somewhere to shelter while they get that help is a necessary part of the solution but it is the solution. Mental issues and drug addiction frequently overlaps but otherwise the same argument applies. Help needs to be directed on the root cause and issues and homelessness is a symptom, not a cause. You disruptors out there, get going. Where is the unicorn hidden here?
- exDM69 4y ago
  > Only if one believes that the lack of a home or a house is the root cause of the individuals problem. Homelessness may not be the root cause, but it effectively prevents one from having a normal life. One is unable to help oneself if they spend all of their time, money and effort staying warm, fed and safe. > A drug addict provided with a house as a home will turn that house into a cesspit in very short time. The drug addict does not clean, does not take out the trash, does not repair. The drug addict will invite other drug addicts to the house, essentially turning it into what is called a drug house. The house can no longer be lived in, and it stops being a home. If you do this you get evicted from normal housing. Which is why the supported "housing first" initiative apartment blocks come with rules, social workers, etc. Typically they tolerate substance abuse but have restrictions on number of visitors, visiting hours, etc. > Helping SF drug addicts is a noble cause and should be done - but not by giving them a free house. They need help with their drug addiction first and foremost. Having somewhere to shelter while they get that help is a necessary part of the solution but it is the solution. It's is extremely difficult to try to get out of substance abuse or mental illness issues when living rough. This is exactly why the paradigm of giving housing first exists. Previous attempts at helping the homeless with substance abuse and mental health were fruitless. All the money and effort put into that had very poor results. Give the keys to a normal apartment to an addict and they'll be doing drugs instead of paying rent and back on the streets in a few months. Housing first, addressing problems second was found to be much more effective. This was researched extensively. About 80% of people given supported housing get out of homelessness [0]. That's a massive difference to earlier "shelter only" model of social support for the homeless. [0] https://www.hdl.fi/blog/asunto-ensin-tavoitteena-pysyva-asuminen/ https://www.hdl.fi/blog/asunto-ensin-tavoitteena-pysyva-asum...

silisili 4y ago

I've lived all over the US. Sometimes, homeless are down on luck. These are mostly the invisible type, that you may not even know exist. Then you have the crazies. Mostly harmless, but not productive in society so much, so kinda outcast. Then you have the grifters. Harmless mostly, enterprising folk. They're out there playing fake violins in parking lots with their family. And staking out busy offramps with their signs. My city now has mostly the drugged type. These are the worst, they are aggressive, hateful, and many times violent. I've seen people ask for money, then spend a few seconds sizing me up before just going about their day. For reference, I'm a huge guy, and I'd feel sorry for normal folks in those situations. One beheaded a woman in the parking lot of a Kohl's last year, for example. The city has mostly given up, and are building them little drug dens downtown so they'll stop bothering everyone, hopefully. It's easy to say you want to be compassionate, and look for solutions. After living in it with the aggressive type, I honestly wish the cops would just billy club them and ship them off elsewhere. I absolutely want to help anyone down on their luck and trying. And the crazies. And I feel sorry for them getting grouped in with the other category of folk. It's not simple to compare homeless across a single city, much less different cities, much less different countries. There aren't a lot of lessons to be learned between the three or four types.

kstenerud 4y ago
Any solution not currently being employed couldn't work because the local issues are different in some nebulous way, and it would require careful study before making a hasty move, and there are all these special cases that are different, and it just couldn't work so we should give up because nothing will ever work even if it has worked elsewhere, and just club them all to death instead.
- silisili 4y ago
  This is so dismissive. We have to admit and analyze the reasons for homelessness before we attempt a solution. Sometimes, people who do everything right end up homeless due to illness, rising rents, death in the family, or any multitude of reasons. If we gave these people free housing and resources, they'd likely bounce back and be fine. If we mix in folks who are drugged out beyond belief, who are violent, who have no desire to improve, it taints the entire project. Do you want to put a family of 4 trying to get by next door to some shirtless guy with a machete who constantly threatens to stab everyone? Why? Now all the neighbors complain, crime goes up, etc. It's time to admit some people either aren't worth helping, or at least can't be helped in the way that others can.

bandrami 4y ago

it's interesting that Americans all seem to assume the US has a horrible homelessness problem when it actually has a pretty low homelessness rate by OECD standards (and for that matter Finland got the idea from a US municipal program). It's like half the UK rate and a third of the German rate, and thats even with the US using a broader definition of "homeless" than UK or DE.

lynx23 4y ago

Whats wrong about "almost ended" or, "vastly reduced"? I feel manipulated when I see "virtually ended".

bubba_sparks 4y ago

Can we send all our homeless in America to Finland?

timonoko 4y ago

As luck would have it, I took pictures of last ever homeless abode in Helsinki 2005. It was destroyed soon after. It is totally functional all-year-round, with good sleeping bag and oil-lamp quite comfortable. https://photos.app.goo.gl/MqwRWdgkN0oynyTw1 https://photos.app.goo.gl/MqwRWdgkN0oynyTw1 I personally would not move from this abode to Helsinki Mäkelänkatu homeless shelter, full of creepy drugheads and violent drunks.

timonoko 4y ago
It took only 3 guesses for ChatGPT to get close to the correct answer. Google was hopeless. -- I believe the correct translation for "sissimajoite" from Finnish to English is "guerrilla camouflage". "Sissi" means "guerrilla" or "insurgent", and "majoite" refers to "camouflage" or "camouflaging".

anonzzzies 4y ago

It looks like Finland is similar to my country in this respect; homeless people don’t need to be homeless in the first place as, even if everything falls down (financially or (whatever)abuse wise), they still are entitled to state support. They get state housing, but here, at least in the summer, I know quite a few who choose to sleep on the streets anyway. They have mental illnesses (they get help for) and they like begging (wearing clean clothes mostly) as a means of socialising (that’s how I got to know them; they come over when you sit at bars and when you don’t give money right away they start talking). The problem is generally not comparable to some other countries; if you do see horrible scenes like in some US neighbourhoods (drug zombies, crack prostitutes, drug dealers, violence), they are extremely rare here and almost exclusively involve a tiny group of illegal immigrants. They are usually removed pretty quickly and, presumably, taken to an immigrant center (where they get beds and food) to be processed for either legal immigration or redirected to their home country.

moomoo11 4y ago

Are the homeless in Finland hooked on fentanyl and various other hard drugs? Is half of their homeless population suffering from mental illness (stemming from and made worse by the psychosis from the hard drug use)? Do they have an illegal immigration problem? Is there a perverse incentive for politicians and their families to profit off suffering? The situation in the US imo is not at all equatable to most of the world. Hell I grew up in a third world country without running water and spotty electricity. Saw poverty like you wouldn’t believe but never saw junkies or thugs like you do in SF. I was walking around Market St and saw people dealing drugs and people just drugged out of their minds laying flat on the sidewalks. Horrible. Not to mention all the trash, graffiti, and other waste while brightly lit multi million/billion dollar tech company logos shine brightly above. America needs to become a stern father at some point and just set their kid right. First get clean and clear minded, we have too many fools that have been voted into power by even bigger fools. Or maybe it’s just a SF/big city loony tune.

vidarh 4y ago
The point of the Finnish experience, and plenty of evidence from elsewhere, is that you're far more likely to address drug abuse (yes, the Nordic countries also have drug problems) and other problems once people are housed. The US exceptionalism is almost always a cop-out. For a country that is supposedly so advanced, a shockingly high proportion of Americans seem convinced you can't possibly solve anything.
- danaris 4y ago
  "We're the best country in the world, so if there were a way, we would have found it already! The problem still exists, so obviously it's not solvable!"
- moomoo11 4y ago
  I think it’s due to the fact that there’s no “honor” system or any homogeneity in the population. I’m a naturalized citizen and US is my one and only home. It’s sad that half the people I meet seem to hate living here and even hate their own country. When I was in Japan there was a massive rainfall and Kyoto station was flooding. I saw a bunch of old people appear out of nowhere wearing bright vests and helping to remove the mud and water. I found out they were elderly volunteers and that it’s just something Japanese people do there. In the US I feel like it’s so rare to see that kind of unity unless it’s a situation already dialed to 11. The investor class in the US treats people here like cattle. And the cattle all know they’re fucked unless they can elevate into the investor class.

jaclaz 4y ago

OT, but not much, a very nice movie, a bit strange but interesting is The Man Without a Past by Aki Kaurismäki, that "touches" a similar theme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Kaurism%C3%A4ki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Kaurism%C3%A4ki

jokoon 4y ago

article 25 of the declaration of human rights talks about right to shelter and food