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Finland applies the “Housing First” concept (2020)
- jslezak 2y agoEffective US policy is that people must serve whatever corporation wants their labor or else they will be left to die without healthcare, shelter or food Other countries do not have this policy
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- foobarian 2y agoWonder how they force the homeless who don't want the shelter. Maybe it's just cold enough that it doesn't happen much.
- stavros 2y agoI'm going to go out on a limb here and say "they don't force them".
- yieldcrv 2y agoyou mean like in the US’ west coast cities? favelas aren’t normal or a baseline for societal cooperation
- Ekaros 2y agoNo one can force them to live in the housing they are provided. Well police might drop them off there. But can't nail the door shut.
- carlosjobim 2y agoThey can and they do force them into mental institutions. In other countries the right of individual freedom is considered to be above the right of the government, so these people are homeless on the streets instead. If you're concerned about abuses of this kind of arrangement, look for example to the Soviet Union, where a person who was against the government was of course mentally ill and put away – because how can you be against the wonderful government?
- thesuitonym 2y ago> They can and they do force them into mental institutions. Okay, but this thread is about homeless housing.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoThe point is that this is a big piece of the puzzle of why “Housing First” does not seem to fully solve homelessness in other places that try it. Often people speculate that it’s because the policy is being applied incorrectly. But if there’s some people with mental illnesses that make it impossible to house them normally, and Finland helps them through an entirely different program, that could explain the gap.
- bluGill 2y agoForcing someone into a mental institution means they are housed. Many (numbers wise, I have no idea what %) of the homeless in the US refuse all government help. In the US if you refuse help and have not committed a serious crime the government cannot force you to get help. I have known a few paranoid schizophrenic people in my life. They needed help, but refused all attempts to get it to them. One eventually did get help - but only because he committed a felony and his condition was obvious enough that the court forced an insanity plea on him. While the above sounds awful, it could be worse. The US used to have a lot of institutions and force people into them all the time. Abuse was common - it is debatable if freezing to death on the streets is worse than the institutions of old - most homeless don't freeze to death (though it happens). The right answer is reform the institutions, but I don't know how you do that.
- carlosjobim 2y agoHow can you not understand? Homeless who are mentally ill -> Forcefully put into institutions Homeless who are drug addicts -> Forcefully put into institutions Homeless who are criminals -> Forcefully put into jail or prison How many homeless do you have left after that? The majority of homeless people in any place in the world has one or more of the above problems. Why would anybody be homeless if they didn't? Except for a short time during a crisis.
- stevekemp 2y agoFinnish mental health legislation takes a medical approach to compulsory measures, emphasizing the need for treatment of psychiatric patients over civil liberties concerns... Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214 compared with 93 in the UK and 11 in Italy. If at the end of the 3-month period it is considered likely that detention criteria are still fulfilled, new recommendations MII and MIII are filed and the renewed detention is then valid for 6 months. However, this second period of detention has to be immediately confirmed by a local administrative court. That's one part of the solution; whether it works is left as an exercise to the reader ..
- BigGreenJorts 2y ago> Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214 compared with 93 in the UK and 11 in Italy. Wow, now that is something I have not heard at all despite how frequently I've heard about the Finland housing first approach to drug addiction/homelessness. Thank you for the reading topic! EDIT: Where did you get these numbers and what kind of detention do they refer to? I am not finding this 214/100k number anywhere. The prisoner population in Finland seems to be about 50/100k and the pre-trial detention rate is similar (unlike where I live where pre-trial accounts for 80% of detainees due to slow courts) EDIT 2: Nevermind, I did find psychiatric holds, which I see to be reported as 150/100k which is certainly much much higher than other countries.
- pjc50 2y agoPsychiatric hold is a very, very different category from prison.
- pmdulaney 2y agoThis is enlightening. Thank you.
- throw-373414 2y ago[dead]
- wil421 2y agoFinland has a population similar to the US metro I live in. The rates were about the same a few years ago, 4,000 people, it would be interesting to apply similar methods here. The city and famous people bought real estate in a former open air drug market and housed people there with great results over a decade or so.
- fastball 2y agoEven if the scale is the same, I'm not sure what works for a nation-state will work for a metro area, because a metro area has to deal with migratory homelessness as a result of any services or benefits provided, in a way that a nation with a strong border does not.
- hrududu 2y agoFinland doesn't have much in the way of open land borders, but it is part of Schengen.
- dredmorbius 2y agoFinland, part of the EU's Schengen zone, doesn't precisely have strong borders. It does lack the climate which might appeal to border-crossers, however, unlike, say, Southern California which has a long-standing homeless situation.
- LuciOfStars 2y agoSounds a lot better than building benches with handles that stick up your rear end.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoI hate the whole idea behind hostile architecture.
- stavros 2y agoIt seems like this is free housing, but near the end it says that some people don't manage to pay the rent? Does anyone know if this is free or not?
- martinald 2y agoIf it's similar to the UK they will get the money for the rent paid to them from the govt, but they have to pay it to the "landlord". In the UK some people can be eligible for direct rent payments to landlords.
- stavros 2y agoHmm, the article says the landlord is the NGO (unless I've misunderstood). Maybe it's as you say, though.
- Ekaros 2y agoBasically most of the cases end up so that municipal entities are those providing social housing. And on other side they are also last resort welfare. Generally welfare payments for housing and cost of living is paid directly to accounts of those receiving benefits, but in small number of cases who can not manage their own money it is paid directly from welfare to municipal(more rarely private was these people have really screwed up credit) social housing.
- noselasd 2y agoYou pay rent. You get the money to pay the rent from social security benefits.
- closewith 2y agoThere's a token rent linked to income.
- martinald 2y agoThe UK also has the same policy. There are very very few people that are completely unhoused, instead they beg on the streets and then go back to a flat/shelter. The ones that are completely unhoused are either their by "choice" or are so chaotic they have ran out of options. In UK cities you will see a lot of people on the streets during the day but not at night. However, the number of people begging on the streets is still rising sharply, so I don't think it is the silver bullet everyone thinks it is. NB: some people are there by "choice" because some shelters are so chaotic it is better to be out on the streets. Some have lived outside for so long that they do not like living inside. I'm not saying that the situation couldn't be improved, but the core issue is addiction IMO to get rid of 'visible' "homelessness". There is also a huge problem that so many people are living in "temporary" accommodation for years waiting for social housing. The key point I'd say is the problem with homelessness is addiction treatment (and the lack of it). You can give these people houses but without treatment they will still be begging on the street. One alternative would be to prescribe heroin which I think could work, but crack/meth is different - very hard to keep people on any sort of maintenance dose of those drugs and most of the "chaotic people" are addicted to an opiate and a stimulant. I've started doing volunteer work in this space for the past few years and it really has opened my eyes to the real problems with it. Housing is a prerequisite to the solution but it is not a solution itself, unfortunately. I didn't realise this before volunteering.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- MSFT_Edging 2y ago> because some shelters are so chaotic it is better to be out on the streets. This is an important bit that people will usually fail to consider. I've read so many stories where living on the street can be the safer option for both your bodily health and general well being. I don't know how it is in the UK, but in the US, shelters will often require people to allow the shelter to hold their belongings for safe keeping. What often happens is the shelter staff will throw away, lose, or downright steal those belongings. I've read stories of IDs, phones, and notebooks that have been held onto for years going missing under the watch of the shelter. In shelters that don't require this, your things are now at the mercy of your fellow shelter borders. And things can go missing just as easily. It makes sense people would want to avoid shelters and sleep outside if this is what happens when they choose the shelter. These kinds of losses are extremely demoralizing and damaging. Same deal with Homeless encampment cleanups. People will lose their medicine, documents, cell phones, etc and have to start back from square one, often destroying any progress they could have made. It basically makes the homeless "problem" even worse and pushes people down worse paths. This kind of stress causes all sorts of mental illness in return, creating a cycle of poverty-> homelessness -> stress -> mental illness.
- z33k 2y agoYesterday (March 5, 2025) there was a headline in the top Finnish newspaper: Shopping malls in Helsinki become a hive of homelessness <https://www.hs.fi/helsinki/art-2000011068519.html https://www.hs.fi/helsinki/art-2000011068519.html> When it gets cold, the homeless congregate in the warm interiors of malls. The guards on duty won’t let them sleep there, but they prefer it over being out in the cold.
- weberer 2y agoYLE's English section also covered it. Homelessness has risen in the past year. https://yle.fi/a/74-20147497 https://yle.fi/a/74-20147497
- mind-blight 2y agoYeah, it's definitely not a perfect solution. Portland, OR has tried a housing first policy. However, there weren't enough available houses, so that requires to build them. That's lead to years of people still being homeless and underserved while resources went into building homes. I think it can help a lot under the right circumstances, but if the system is already overwhelmed then funding less permanent solutions for a while may actually be more effective and kind
- bluGill 2y agoBuilding homes does not take very long if the regulations allow it. Most of the US needs to take a hard look at regulations. Often the problem is regulations won't allow a small house and so the homeless are forced on the street because they can't afford anything.
- cvwright 2y agoOften the regulations are the start of the problem. I remember reading an article in Portland that the city was expecting N new people to move there in the next 10 years. So they approved construction of housing for N-200k people. They intentionally set things up to push the poorest and most vulnerable 200k people into homelessness.
- skizm 2y agoI mean, New York, including NYC, has a right to shelter law that anyone is allowed to get a free bed if they want. There is still rampant homelessness or vagrancies or whatever you want to call it.
- criddell 2y agoA lot of shelters have don't allow drugs or alcohol in them. Many or single sex shelters so people with a partner are excluded. Many don't allow pets and for many people their dog is very important.
- toomanyrichies 2y agoAlso, according to other comments here, many shelters either require houseless people to turn over their belongings (cell phones, medication, paperwork, etc.) to the shelter for "safe-keeping". These belongings can then frequently "go missing", forcing the person to start over from scratch. Alternately, shelters without this policy in place expose the person to the risk of theft from their bunkmates. The combination of these two factors leads some to self-assess that they're better off on the street.
- jsat 2y agoIf you compare to the west coast, it is not rampant. I just moved from Seattle to NYC and the difference is striking to put it mildly.
- skizm 2y agoFair. I was checking out jobs in LA and was blown away. Was the primary reason I passed on my offers there. Also I didn’t want to give up my public transit
- timonoko 2y agoHere is last-ever homeless abode from 2005 Helsinki. Totally habitable, warm and dry, whatever the weather. Beats any government shelter, especially those where sobriety is enforced. https://photos.app.goo.gl/MqwRWdgkN0oynyTw1 https://photos.app.goo.gl/MqwRWdgkN0oynyTw1
- Thorrez 2y ago>Those affected by homelessness receive a small apartment and counselling – without any preconditions. That photo doesn't look like it would beat a small apartment to me. >The policy applied in Finland is called “HousingFirst”. It reverses conventional homeless aid. More commonly, those affected are expected to look for a job and free themselves from their psychological problems or addictions. That quote seems to me to say that people are given housing without a sobriety requirement.
- ck2 2y agoMeanwhile in USA we're approaching nearly 1000 BILLIONAIRES in the country (Billionaires have a MILLION dollars per MONTH of income, PER MONTH FOR LIFE) yet people around here sleeping in the woods and cemeteries exponentially more sleeping in their cars thinking it will only be for a few weeks (turns into years real quick)
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- nottorp 2y agoWell I clicked on your bitdefender link and they just list every possible harm a web site can do to you. Sounds to me like an "AI" hallucinating.
- pogue 2y agoIt's possible, I have no idea how Bitdefender rates websites. But when I first checked urlvoid, the site had been scanned months ago and had more than 3 or 4 positive hits. It's a WordPress site, so it isn't out of the realm of possibility it was hacked and something malicious was dropped in that was later cleaned up.
- nottorp 2y agoI'm more commenting on how scareware-ish the bitdefender report is than on the actual web site.
- torlok 2y agoI genuinely think that the anti-Europe sentiment in the current US government and libertarian spaces is because European countries manage to do this and more, and remain competitive in the global economy, while the US tells its citizens it "can't afford" public healthcare or student loan relief.
- sgarland 2y agoOf course it is. It’s the same reason the media touts the horror stories of lengthy wait times for public healthcare, while ignoring the fact that having the theoretical choice without the means is worse.
- weberer 2y ago>the anti-Europe sentiment in the current US government and libertarian spaces I haven't seen this at all. Europe is generally seen as our closest ally.
- mytailorisrich 2y agoEconomic growth in Europe has stalled since the 2008 financial crisis and the EU is falling behind the US in terms of GDP. Public healthcare systems are under pressure because of aging population and increasing difficulty to finance them because of those economic issues. But apart from that it is "competitive"... Flip side is that the US are much richer so could afford to have much more then they have now.
- darren0 2y ago"With 4 out of 5 people keeping their flats, “Housing First” is effective in the long run. In 20 percent of the cases, people move out because they prefer to stay with friends or relatives – or because they don’t manage to pay the rent. But even in this case they are not dropped. They can apply again for an apartment and are supported again if they wish." There are no preconditions, but there are conditions to maintain. In this case, rent being required apparently. This is the recipe for success that I've seen. And if they don't maintain the conditions they get kicked out with the opportunity to come back and try again.
- slothtrop 2y agoSince homelessness is mostly transient in general, I'm skeptical of the claim to effectiveness, since it's likely that a large portion of a sample would move on within a year anyway.
- moffkalast 2y ago[flagged]
- hammock 2y agoCan anyone in Finland confirm? I'm curious about A) number of homeless today vs 10 years ago B) waiting time for one of these apartments c) acceptance and integration of these people in the local community
- hkt 2y agoCue a flood of people euphemistically saying this is because it is a "small, homogenous" country
- mrbluecoat 2y agoUtah did the same thing two decades ago: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...
- KerryJones 2y agoThe title should mention this is from 2020
- andrewla 2y agoBuried in the last time we discussed this phenomenom [1][2] is the reality of the Finnish policy towards homelessness. Like in the US, "homelessness" as in "poor or unlucky people who find themselves without a residence" is practically a nonexistent problem. The real problem is the mentally ill or drug addicted people frankly being a public nuisance. Finland has tried to sell their strategy as one of providing housing, but that masks the actual reality. Finland is engaging in large-scale involuntary confinement of mentally ill individuals, and that is responsible for the entirety of their solution. The current Finnish mental health regime was enabled by a law passed in 1990. Since that point, given the 5.6M population times the 214/100,000 rate [3], we get a total of ~12,000 people committed. The graph in the linked article [4] shows a reduction in homelessness from about 17,000 to about 4,000, a reduction of approximately 13,000 people. So all but a tiny fraction of the homeless population was not miraculously housed; they were put involuntarily into mental hospitals. While I hope that Finnish mental health facilities are humane and the inmates are well cared for, historically this has almost never been the case -- other agencies claim credit for reducing homelessness and eventually funding dries up and the conditions worsen in the facilities because the problem doesn't seem urgent. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42656711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42656711 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683898 [3] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychiatric-bulletin/article/compulsory-psychiatric-detention-and-treatment-in-finland/4757FEDD5BB56849744DDE76A7FEBBE1 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychiatric-bulletin... [4] https://oecdecoscope.blog/2021/12/13/finlands-zero-homeless-strategy-lessons-from-a-success-story/ https://oecdecoscope.blog/2021/12/13/finlands-zero-homeless-...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- relaxing 2y agoNo response yet from the guy who shows up in these “guaranteed housing” threads to claim everyday people will stop paying rent and voluntarily live in the projects? Must still be asleep on the West coast… Rise and grind, my dude!
- lolinder 2y agoNeeds (2020). I find a recent report [0] that shows that the trend has continued, though interestingly only Helsinki has actually shown significant improvements: > Of the large cities, Helsinki is the only one where homelessness has systematically decreased in the past five years. In other large cities, the pattern has been more irregular (Figures 4 and 5). The reduction in homelessness in Helsinki covers more than half of the reduction in homelessness in the whole country. Also worth noting from that report is that it has data going back to 1986 in an appendix (page 25) and the downward trend in homelessness dates back at least that far. The homeless rate had already cut in more than half by 2008 when this program started. [0] https://www.varke.fi/en/media/101 https://www.varke.fi/en/media/101
- pmdulaney 2y agoPerhaps it is time for K-12 education to include modules on how to avoid homelessness in your future. Western democracies tend to be rather laissez-faire about drug use, for example, but surely there is a strong correlation between drug use and future homelessness. In California, where I live, the state spends large sums of money to discourage smoking, but little is done to discourage the use of recreational drugs.
- cess11 2y agoMost people that use drugs do not suffer homelessness. They experience no social problems at all. Even if there was a correlation, why do you assume there is a causation?
- pmdulaney 2y agoWell, let A be the conditional probability that one becomes homeless given that he uses recreational drugs. Let B be the conditional probability that one becomes homeless if he doesn't use recreational drugs. If A does not turn out to be significantly larger than B, then my understanding is incorrect.
- cess11 2y agoA reductive trick I have trouble imagining a suitable audience for.
- pmdulaney 2y agoIt's not a trick at all, though it might seem so if you're not familiar with the concept of conditional probabilities. And it's hard to imagine a more suitable audience than Hacker News. But it sounds to me like, for you, the unfettered freedom to use recreational drugs is an inherent good, and that you don't think it should be discouraged even if can be shown to lead to increased homelessness.
- cess11 2y ago
- throwaway7dead6 2y ago[dead]
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- moi2388 2y agoGiving homeless people homes reduces homelessness. In other news, giving thirsty people drinks reduces the amount of thirsty people.
- Tiktaalik 2y agoIn Vancouver the issue of homelessness and drug use deaths has been in the state of permanent crisis for years and years with governments of all types vacillating between various actions, taking a bold step forward here, experiencing a set back, then taking a step back to the status quo and so forth. All the while the simple reality remains that at no point has there ever actually been enough homes for everyone who needs one, and in fact, despite whatever homes have been built in the last decade, the city experienced a net loss of affordable housing in total, and the net amount of people experiencing homelessness has only increased. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here watching this because I don't understand how anyone expects anyone to get any traction whatsoever on resolving more difficult personal problems like drug use disorders or mental health when they don't actually have anywhere to live. Whether it's "housing first" or "housing last" the insane thing that I see in Vancouver is that it seems to be neither! Solving a big complex problem you gotta start with a good foundation here and the basics. Ok step one: ensure you actually have housing for literally everyone in your society. Ok if you've done that now work on the more challenging complex stuff.
- erelong 2y agosounds good in theory, maybe not in practice
- slothtrop 2y ago> With 4 out of 5 people keeping their flats, “Housing First” is effective in the long 80% of people get out of homelessness on their own, seems like basically the same rate. How are they certain the initiative had any bearing on the long-term outcome? That's the part I'm not understanding. It doesn't seem to suggest it leads to a difference in rates.