6 ms·

This is a nuanced issue and I agree with what you wrote. I live in Finland. Some additional thoughts: - The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole ot

by deanc 3y ago

This is a nuanced issue and I agree with what you wrote. I live in Finland. Some additional thoughts: - The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions. - The state vs government system in the US means it's every state for themselves when solving social issues. This is seen in states actively shipping homeless people to warmer climate states in order to make their problems go away. - As you point out, homeless people die in the winter. It's also cold in many places in the US, and hot in others - so people die all the time there too. - As a society Finland has a robust social security system, the society is built on it - and the idea of equality (Hint: its not, but it's not bad at all either compared to other countries). The amount of Americans I've seen arguing against free healthcare as they don't want to pay for it just blows my mind, I would imagine you'd go into a similar situation if the government raised taxes to "fix the homeless problem". "Well i'm not homeless, why should i pay for these people's problems" etc. (Not my view, just predicting how it will go).

ajuc 3y ago
> The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions Problems get big if they are ignored for long enough. Fix the root causes first: https://www.retireguide.com/retirement-planning/risks/medical-bankruptcy-statistics/ https://www.retireguide.com/retirement-planning/risks/medica... Whatever remains can be solved with social housing.
sremani 3y ago
>> The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. True. Just for some comparison, if Finland was a metropolitan in US, it would be ranked 10th. Above Phoenix metro and Below Atlanta Metro. I understand the good intentions of people trying to show case 'Scandinavian countries' as a model. They miss many things including Scale.
- redeeman 3y ago
  yes, so economies of scale
- Jedd 3y ago
  > They miss many things including Scale. Yes, it's very easy to completely miss scale, as well as missing sensible priorities, etc, and embrace a mantra of exceptionalism as a convenience. Apropos ranking, the United States spends more on military / defense than the next 10 countries combined.
  - cvwright 3y ago
    Yes, we pay to defend Europe from Russia, and we do it for free. We should stop doing that, and invest more in domestic needs.
    - piva00 3y ago
      No, you pay to continue having hegemony over multiple continents. Don't call American military spending in any sense some kind of altruism, it's done to keep the USA power and money floating around.
      - sremani 3y ago
        The early reasoning was to not repeat the mistake of the two world wars -- where American kids had to bleed in a European conflict. Of course, US got involved because so much money was lent to allies etc. There is a reason -- why Algeria is not there in "North Atlantic" treaty Organization but Estonia is. Let us not pretend here, America treats Europe differently and with in Europe, UK differently. There are cultural and institutional bonds -- of course layers of Geopolitical and strategic interests. But the boys, who are dreaming Americans picking their marbles and going home should really be careful what they wish for, because it might actually come true.
      - cvwright 3y ago
        > No, you pay to continue having hegemony over multiple continents. Sure, it's that too. It's both. Regardless, it should stop.
        piva00 3y ago
- piva00 3y ago
  Scale... Isn't the USA supposedly federalised states? So each state has a small enough scale to solve its issues, with an added benefit that countries in the EU don't have as easily: a federal government that can work to provide funding, coordination and national-level programs to solve the issues. The closest to that coordination is at the EU level itself which is much more complex and less powerful than the federal government of the USA. I really dislike when American exceptionalism gets to the point of brushing away any kind of role model that could be used as an inspiration to be adapted to American needs as "it won't work because we are different". Guess what, every nation and society is different. Learn from others what worked, adapt to your local needs, that's how progress works. The USA has the largest economy in the world, there's plenty of money that other countries lack for solving social issues. The main issue is allocation, American society does not think that solving social issues is worthy enough so you don't invest in it. After experiencing all the side-effects of such negligence them comes the exceptionalism excuse, that the scale is different, that X, Y or Z are hard because of A, B, C, so on and so forth. It's just an excuse, a lame one at that. Yeah, Nordic countries don't have a large population, as a whole there's around 28 million people across the Nordics (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland), with around US$ 1.8T of GDP. Texas in the USA has 29 million people with US$1.8T GDP in a much smaller area than all the Nordics combined, with better weather, why the fuck can't Texas be like the Nordics then?
  - yunohn 3y ago
    I’m not supporting the idea of USA exceptionalism, but scale /absolutely/ does matter. I’ve lived on most continents, and currently in the EU, I can see when even small increases in load on services leads to total breakdown. There’s a reason they are unable to sustain amidst immigration.
    - piva00 3y ago
      Of course it matters, that's why I brought up the point that each state in the USA is supposedly small enough to have local governance, that they have enough state-level freedoms to solve localised problems and exactly why I compare the scale of Texas to all of the Nordics as they are very similar in GDP and population.
- scotty79 3y ago
  Do you mean that Phoenix Metro and every other place smaller should have fixed their homelessness as well as Finland or better already?
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    Not the op, but yes why not?
  - sremani 3y ago
    That is not the point. But I will assume good faith here, Alaska is the one state that has similarities with Scandinavia. In terms of both weather and resource extraction. Is Alaska doing worse than Scandinavia when dealing homeless?
chii 3y ago
> also cold in many places in the US ... so people die all the time there too. The cold climate locations in the US does not have homeless during the winter, because they move away to warmer climates. There's no warmer climate to be in for Finland.
- zztop44 3y ago
  Helsinki winter isn’t much colder than DC or New York, both of which have large year-round homeless populations.
  - laserlight 3y ago
    This got me curious, so I compared [0]. To summarize, Helsinki's high tracks NYC's low. Helsinki is 6 -- 8 C (10 -- 14 F) colder than NYC in January -- February. [0] https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/91632~23912/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Helsinki-and-New-York-City https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/91632~23912/Comparison-of...
    - zztop44 3y ago
      I agree, it is definitely colder in Helsinki. But heavy snowfall and -12C (the NYC mean minimum coldest day temperature in January) is still extremely uncomfortable to sleep rough in. Yet many homeless people stay in New York year round.
  - jimnotgym 3y ago
    So the difference is really that Finland is further along the path of civilisation?
- jxramos 3y ago
  I used to see homeless sleeping in the doorway/building entrances in DC in the evenings while it was snowing outside. It terrified me. They had a few blankets and would huddle up.
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
toss1 3y ago
>>The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions. Bigger country also has far more available resources. From TFA: >>So, more than a decade after the launch of the “Housing First” policy, 80 per cent of Finland’s homeless are doing well, still living in the housing they’d been provided with — but now paying the rent on their own. >>This not only helps the homeless, it turns out to be cheaper. That bears repeating: it turns out to be cheaper The solution can be found in the common refrain of conservative ideologues fighting against social programs —— it isn't the government that knows how to best spend the money, it is the people. The really simple solution to homelessness and poverty is: Literally house the homeless and give UBI to everyone at a poverty level. It turns out that the individual people really often do know how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as long as they have bootstraps. A tiny house with a fixed address, bed, toilet, shower, and cooktop eliminates enormous classes of problems both for the unfortunate people, and the rest of society. A basic income is most commonly used by people to improve themselves. Yes, there will always be sad examples of people who fail and use it to drink/drug themselves to death, but every actual study I've read shows that these are vastly outnumbered by those who use the minimal resources to get out of their personal hell; this is just another in those long series of studies. And to those who scream "moral hazard - you're rewarding bad behavior! Welfare queens!!" — bullsh^t. The richest societies in the world can afford to provide basic housing, food, and medical care to all their residents (but not the entire world, immigration controls are needed). No one wants to be in the dregs of homelessness and poverty. And, the objective results are better outcomes, more people overcoming their problems and becoming self-supporting.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  > It turns out that the individual people really often do know how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as long as they have bootstraps. The Finnish case study finds that most of these people never really recover, just that with housing and state support, they still require fewer resources than if they remained unhoused. So this is more like: these people are never going to solve their problems, but at least with housing and a on site social work (to prevent the housing from being destroyed), they won’t burden society more otherwise.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
> - As you point out, homeless people die in the winter. It's also cold in many places in the US, and hot in others - so people die all the time there too. I don't think this point is true. You'll find plenty of homeless people in Seattle from Great Falls Montana, for example. Bus tickets are easy enough to purchase, you don't even have to be shipped. People will migrate where they can survive at least, they aren't stuck in Spokane, Great Falls, or Bismarck. It is always possible to get to LA, some will even get to Honolulu.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  You're comparing apples to oranges. Montana to Seattle is 640 miles. That's almost the size of Finland (north to south), while very few people live in the far north. Spokane to LA is 1,200 miles, that's two Finlands worth of travel. 1,200 miles from the population centers of Finland gets you to Ukraine! There is no part of Finland where you easily survive outside in the winter (without a tent with stove and plenty of firewood). Leaving the country means losing access to the social safety net.

by deanc 3y ago

ajuc 3y ago

> The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions Problems get big if they are ignored for long enough. Fix the root causes first: https://www.retireguide.com/retirement-planning/risks/medical-bankruptcy-statistics/ https://www.retireguide.com/retirement-planning/risks/medica... Whatever remains can be solved with social housing.

sremani 3y ago

>> The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. True. Just for some comparison, if Finland was a metropolitan in US, it would be ranked 10th. Above Phoenix metro and Below Atlanta Metro. I understand the good intentions of people trying to show case 'Scandinavian countries' as a model. They miss many things including Scale.

redeeman 3y ago
yes, so economies of scale
Jedd 3y ago
> They miss many things including Scale. Yes, it's very easy to completely miss scale, as well as missing sensible priorities, etc, and embrace a mantra of exceptionalism as a convenience. Apropos ranking, the United States spends more on military / defense than the next 10 countries combined.
- cvwright 3y ago
  Yes, we pay to defend Europe from Russia, and we do it for free. We should stop doing that, and invest more in domestic needs.
  - piva00 3y ago
    No, you pay to continue having hegemony over multiple continents. Don't call American military spending in any sense some kind of altruism, it's done to keep the USA power and money floating around.
    - sremani 3y ago
      The early reasoning was to not repeat the mistake of the two world wars -- where American kids had to bleed in a European conflict. Of course, US got involved because so much money was lent to allies etc. There is a reason -- why Algeria is not there in "North Atlantic" treaty Organization but Estonia is. Let us not pretend here, America treats Europe differently and with in Europe, UK differently. There are cultural and institutional bonds -- of course layers of Geopolitical and strategic interests. But the boys, who are dreaming Americans picking their marbles and going home should really be careful what they wish for, because it might actually come true.
    - cvwright 3y ago
      > No, you pay to continue having hegemony over multiple continents. Sure, it's that too. It's both. Regardless, it should stop.
      - piva00 3y ago
piva00 3y ago
Scale... Isn't the USA supposedly federalised states? So each state has a small enough scale to solve its issues, with an added benefit that countries in the EU don't have as easily: a federal government that can work to provide funding, coordination and national-level programs to solve the issues. The closest to that coordination is at the EU level itself which is much more complex and less powerful than the federal government of the USA. I really dislike when American exceptionalism gets to the point of brushing away any kind of role model that could be used as an inspiration to be adapted to American needs as "it won't work because we are different". Guess what, every nation and society is different. Learn from others what worked, adapt to your local needs, that's how progress works. The USA has the largest economy in the world, there's plenty of money that other countries lack for solving social issues. The main issue is allocation, American society does not think that solving social issues is worthy enough so you don't invest in it. After experiencing all the side-effects of such negligence them comes the exceptionalism excuse, that the scale is different, that X, Y or Z are hard because of A, B, C, so on and so forth. It's just an excuse, a lame one at that. Yeah, Nordic countries don't have a large population, as a whole there's around 28 million people across the Nordics (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland), with around US$ 1.8T of GDP. Texas in the USA has 29 million people with US$1.8T GDP in a much smaller area than all the Nordics combined, with better weather, why the fuck can't Texas be like the Nordics then?
- yunohn 3y ago
  I’m not supporting the idea of USA exceptionalism, but scale /absolutely/ does matter. I’ve lived on most continents, and currently in the EU, I can see when even small increases in load on services leads to total breakdown. There’s a reason they are unable to sustain amidst immigration.
  - piva00 3y ago
    Of course it matters, that's why I brought up the point that each state in the USA is supposedly small enough to have local governance, that they have enough state-level freedoms to solve localised problems and exactly why I compare the scale of Texas to all of the Nordics as they are very similar in GDP and population.
scotty79 3y ago
Do you mean that Phoenix Metro and every other place smaller should have fixed their homelessness as well as Finland or better already?
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  Not the op, but yes why not?
- sremani 3y ago
  That is not the point. But I will assume good faith here, Alaska is the one state that has similarities with Scandinavia. In terms of both weather and resource extraction. Is Alaska doing worse than Scandinavia when dealing homeless?

chii 3y ago

> also cold in many places in the US ... so people die all the time there too. The cold climate locations in the US does not have homeless during the winter, because they move away to warmer climates. There's no warmer climate to be in for Finland.

zztop44 3y ago
Helsinki winter isn’t much colder than DC or New York, both of which have large year-round homeless populations.
- laserlight 3y ago
  This got me curious, so I compared [0]. To summarize, Helsinki's high tracks NYC's low. Helsinki is 6 -- 8 C (10 -- 14 F) colder than NYC in January -- February. [0] https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/91632~23912/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Helsinki-and-New-York-City https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/91632~23912/Comparison-of...
  - zztop44 3y ago
    I agree, it is definitely colder in Helsinki. But heavy snowfall and -12C (the NYC mean minimum coldest day temperature in January) is still extremely uncomfortable to sleep rough in. Yet many homeless people stay in New York year round.
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  So the difference is really that Finland is further along the path of civilisation?
jxramos 3y ago
I used to see homeless sleeping in the doorway/building entrances in DC in the evenings while it was snowing outside. It terrified me. They had a few blankets and would huddle up.
- genocidicbunny 3y ago

toss1 3y ago

>>The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions. Bigger country also has far more available resources. From TFA: >>So, more than a decade after the launch of the “Housing First” policy, 80 per cent of Finland’s homeless are doing well, still living in the housing they’d been provided with — but now paying the rent on their own. >>This not only helps the homeless, it turns out to be cheaper. That bears repeating: it turns out to be cheaper The solution can be found in the common refrain of conservative ideologues fighting against social programs —— it isn't the government that knows how to best spend the money, it is the people. The really simple solution to homelessness and poverty is: Literally house the homeless and give UBI to everyone at a poverty level. It turns out that the individual people really often do know how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as long as they have bootstraps. A tiny house with a fixed address, bed, toilet, shower, and cooktop eliminates enormous classes of problems both for the unfortunate people, and the rest of society. A basic income is most commonly used by people to improve themselves. Yes, there will always be sad examples of people who fail and use it to drink/drug themselves to death, but every actual study I've read shows that these are vastly outnumbered by those who use the minimal resources to get out of their personal hell; this is just another in those long series of studies. And to those who scream "moral hazard - you're rewarding bad behavior! Welfare queens!!" — bullsh^t. The richest societies in the world can afford to provide basic housing, food, and medical care to all their residents (but not the entire world, immigration controls are needed). No one wants to be in the dregs of homelessness and poverty. And, the objective results are better outcomes, more people overcoming their problems and becoming self-supporting.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
> It turns out that the individual people really often do know how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as long as they have bootstraps. The Finnish case study finds that most of these people never really recover, just that with housing and state support, they still require fewer resources than if they remained unhoused. So this is more like: these people are never going to solve their problems, but at least with housing and a on site social work (to prevent the housing from being destroyed), they won’t burden society more otherwise.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

> - As you point out, homeless people die in the winter. It's also cold in many places in the US, and hot in others - so people die all the time there too. I don't think this point is true. You'll find plenty of homeless people in Seattle from Great Falls Montana, for example. Bus tickets are easy enough to purchase, you don't even have to be shipped. People will migrate where they can survive at least, they aren't stuck in Spokane, Great Falls, or Bismarck. It is always possible to get to LA, some will even get to Honolulu.

yencabulator 3y ago
You're comparing apples to oranges. Montana to Seattle is 640 miles. That's almost the size of Finland (north to south), while very few people live in the far north. Spokane to LA is 1,200 miles, that's two Finlands worth of travel. 1,200 miles from the population centers of Finland gets you to Ukraine! There is no part of Finland where you easily survive outside in the winter (without a tent with stove and plenty of firewood). Leaving the country means losing access to the social safety net.