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Don’t mistake my comment for a lack of compassion. Having been homeless myself for almost a year when I was younger, camping out in a local forest preserve and

Don’t mistake my comment for a lack of compassion. Having been homeless myself for almost a year when I was younger, camping out in a local forest preserve and packing out each and every day in the midwest, I do have quite a lot of compassion for homeless people. While I was working my way out of the hole I was in, many of my coworkers were also homeless, I got to know many of them and their individual struggles quite well. However, I’m curious about the cost of assisted living for every drug abusing homeless person in the United States, the ones that don’t work and likely never will, and how the rest of society could shoulder that burden with tax dollars when a huge portion of society barely understands how they will afford to retire when they become too old to work blue collar jobs themselves. I don’t see that being a realistic goal, but I’m interested in hearing more about that if I’m somehow wrong.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
I was homeless for a couple of weeks when I was young. It wasn't really that bad for me though, since I was working, and was eventually given a couch in a friend's house. Finland's method of dealing with chronic homeless should provide a model for an assisted living solution. It comes out to be cheaper than providing services they would consume on the street. A small apartment and a (more well payed than in the states) social worker for every 10 or so residents to make sure they don't burn down the place they are being given by the government. But we need to provide it nationally rather than at the state or local level. This would give us the opportunity to house them in less expensive locations and would prevent the current "tragedy of the commons" situation we have now.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  Worth pointing out that Finland has a much more sparse population density than the United States, with the United States having about 35 people per square kilometer, to Finland's 16. This might enable them to create even cheaper buildings in less desirable parts of their country, though on the flip side, I don't know that all of Finland's land is considered "liveable", basically being in the North Pole. Looking at their homelessness statistics, they've been on a downward trend for homelessness since 1989, having about 17,000 homeless individuals. So assuming that's around the time they started working to put homeless people in houses, I'll use that as their baseline. I'm not sure how accurate the census is on the homeless population in the US, but according to the following link we have about 582,000: https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless... I guess the question here is: does Finland's assisted living solution scale to the size of the United States' homeless problem? And I truly don't have that answer, but while I think it's valuable to point out the patterns that other countries have done to course correct their issues, I think it's also fair to say not every pattern that smaller countries use will work at scale, or even work with our current economic and social systems.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

I was homeless for a couple of weeks when I was young. It wasn't really that bad for me though, since I was working, and was eventually given a couch in a friend's house. Finland's method of dealing with chronic homeless should provide a model for an assisted living solution. It comes out to be cheaper than providing services they would consume on the street. A small apartment and a (more well payed than in the states) social worker for every 10 or so residents to make sure they don't burn down the place they are being given by the government. But we need to provide it nationally rather than at the state or local level. This would give us the opportunity to house them in less expensive locations and would prevent the current "tragedy of the commons" situation we have now.

starttoaster 3y ago
Worth pointing out that Finland has a much more sparse population density than the United States, with the United States having about 35 people per square kilometer, to Finland's 16. This might enable them to create even cheaper buildings in less desirable parts of their country, though on the flip side, I don't know that all of Finland's land is considered "liveable", basically being in the North Pole. Looking at their homelessness statistics, they've been on a downward trend for homelessness since 1989, having about 17,000 homeless individuals. So assuming that's around the time they started working to put homeless people in houses, I'll use that as their baseline. I'm not sure how accurate the census is on the homeless population in the US, but according to the following link we have about 582,000: https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless... I guess the question here is: does Finland's assisted living solution scale to the size of the United States' homeless problem? And I truly don't have that answer, but while I think it's valuable to point out the patterns that other countries have done to course correct their issues, I think it's also fair to say not every pattern that smaller countries use will work at scale, or even work with our current economic and social systems.