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The 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 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.
- closewith 2y ago
  > This is an important bit that people will usually fail to consider. This is explicitly covered by Housing First, which does not involve shared shelter accommodation. Instead, the point is that every homeless person gets their own apartment, without preconditions.
  - pydry 2y ago
    This is also why the UK is very, very far away from housing first. The war on affordable housing is alive and well there. Pretending that guaranteeing shelter where you are at significant risk of being raped and robbed is almost the same thing as guaranteeing an apartment of your own is dishonest. There isn't really another way to describe it.
  - MSFT_Edging 2y ago
    Which is actually great for a huge number of people driven to homelessness. If it's implemented in a way where it can act fast without years of waiting lists, it'd be hugely beneficial to people recently knocked off their feet being able to recover without falling deeper.
- safety1st 2y ago
  Are the budgets so small that they can't afford to provide each tenant with their own lockbox? I feel like being able to secure a small amount of personal property is the sort of thing which would pay for itself in terms of enabling people to get back on their feet and get out of the shelter faster
  - MSFT_Edging 2y ago
    Sometimes a small lockbox isn't enough when you carry everything you have to your name on your back everywhere you go.
closewith 2y ago
> The UK also has the same policy. This is the opposite to the policy in most councils in the UK, which generally only offer temporary shelter and only with preconditions. The Finnish housing-first policy was implemented as UK-style policies were failing, as they are failing now in the UK. > 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. A Housing-first policy has only been trialled by ~15 councils in the UK, and it has been shown to work in all of them. It's much more expensive that the UK's traditional shelter approach, which is partly why it's not national policy.
- drcongo 2y ago
  Thanks for this clarification. The parent made a lot of interesting points but this very wrong statement at the start made it harder to trust the rest of it.
benrutter 2y ago
The UK doesn't yet have "housing first" programmes beyond pilots (not sure about Scotland in that): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-first-pilot-national-evaluation-reports https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-first-pil... I used to work in housing homeless people around 4 years ago, so things may have changes since then, if you're volunteering now you can probably tell me if any of these practices have changed: - Own accomodation was only possible after a proven track record in hostels - Many hostel accomodation places only possible after being "counted" homeless (need to be verified as sleeping rough) - Housing benefit paid directly to the tenant, and if they fail to manage finances (including if there benefits are paused due to missing a form or not filling in a letter in time) they are liable to be evicted from social housing - use of drugs is normally evictable in hostel situations causing a vicious cycle (I don't want to imply the UK is the worst country for social housing, there's some great work, but also some really sad realities that often go unadressed)
Jolter 2y ago
You write “You can give these people houses but without treatment they will still be begging on the street.” Your choice of words makes me wonder whether you would agree that an addict who sleeps in an apartment is better off than an addict who freezes their ass off in an alley at night. Maybe solving for housing first is a way to eliminate some of the suffering in the world. By demanding that their life “is in order” before providing housing, I think we are demanding the impossible from someone who clearly is not capable of making perfect choices.
- balamatom 2y ago
  "Here I am, working my ass off, true-believing in the eventual payoff of all that delayed gratification, stressing myself sick over making the Right Choices in this unwinnable game - and someone who is clearly not capable of making Right Choices gets their problems solved for free? The sheer audacity!" I feel like the cognitive dissonance between the above line of thought and the social expectation to demonstrate "kindness", "generosity", "compassion" is at the root of many people's rejection of an universal social safety net. Can't let themselves realize that a homeless beggar on crack might not only be just as human, but in some ways even a more genuine human being than your garden-variety obedient nine-to-fiver with a bullshit job and toxic family in 4 kinds of debt to cokehead bankerbros. Unfortunately, not getting one's fundamental assumptions challenged is very often a much more powerful motivator than any desire to actually reduce the actual suffering of actual beings.
  - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
    That's not what cognitive dissonance is. That's a dissonance between what people truly think and what they want/need to display. Nice closing joke, though, got a laugh out of me!
    - pmdulaney 2y ago
      No, I think the poster's notion of cognitive dissonance is more correct than yours. Cognitive dissonance refers to the anxiety caused by attempting to embrace two different convictions or beliefs that are incompatible with each other.
bko 2y ago
> One alternative would be to prescribe heroin which I think could work We generally accept the principal that making something cheaper and easier results in more of this behavior. Few examples - subsidize corn results in more corn products like corn syrup in our food - make school loans cheaper and more available to students results in more people going to school - make guns more available and easier to get results in more guns on the street But when it comes to making it easier for people to fuel their addiction and live a more comfortable life centered around a dangerous chemical, some question that this relationship exists. I've watched videos where someone interviews people on the streets in Philadelphia which provides a lot of services around facilitating drug use and they're just living their life as addicts and pretty much okay with their status quo. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make the lives of addicts more comfortable. But we should accept the proposition that subsidizing a behavior or lifestyle makes it more common on the margin.
- skyyler 2y ago
  The prescribed heroin doesn't need to be cheap or plentiful. It could be the same price as the street stuff. The point is to remove the activity from the criminal underworld. A pharmacist dispensing a medication is much less likely to sexually assault their client than a street level heroin dealer.
  - catigula 2y ago
    Making criminal activity legal doesn't solve any of their problems except for the only problem that is entirely on them and disincentivizes their destructive behavior.
    - skyyler 2y ago
      Hey buddy! Your account is pretty new and seems to be mostly arguing with people. I don't really want to interact with that, so I'm writing this to politely tell you that I'll pass on this discussion with you. Have a good one!
      - 2y ago
bluGill 2y ago
> the number of people begging on the streets is still rising sharply, There is a lot of money to be made putting on raggedly clothing and standing on a street corner with a sign. Some of the people doing that really are in a bad place unable to support themselves any other way, but many of them are normal people with normal houses who have decided to make begging their job. (I was going to write full time job, but in a good location they are working part time and pulling in a full time income). I support someone busking on the street. I'm paying for the entertainment value there, if they provide me a smile or other enjoyment that is worth some money. For those who are in trouble I donate to local shelters which take care of people who need help and also have people who can determine if help other than shelter is needed. I'm not against someone in need begging on the streets, but if you could support yourself with a "normal job" then you are scamming me by begging. Local shelters are an easy work around for that. While there are also scams in the shelters, they get audited once in a while.
psychoslave 2y ago
>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. The silver bullet for what? Stop letting people die of cold in the street while there are plenty of empty building out there? I live in France and here we happily let kids which are attending school go sleep in a tent for the whole winter, more than 2000 according to the (probably minoring) official stats. Meanwhile we have MILLIONS of empty shelters. Kudo Finland and all countries that won’t let whatever fear and bullshit metrics make look elsewhere when political decisions lead to unbearable human conditions. https://www.publicsenat.fr/actualites/societe/2043-enfants-a-la-rue-un-chiffre-qui-explose-en-france https://www.publicsenat.fr/actualites/societe/2043-enfants-a... https://www.federationsolidarite.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/DP_Barometre-Enfants-a-la-rue-2024_FAS-UNICEF.pdf https://www.federationsolidarite.org/wp-content/uploads/2024... https://www.ecoreseau.fr/expressions/tribune-libre/la-tragedie-des-enfants-a-la-rue-une-urgence-nationale-2025-02-16-111272 https://www.ecoreseau.fr/expressions/tribune-libre/la-traged... https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/edition-numerique/chiffres-cles-du-logement-2022/5-logements-vacants https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/editi...
vidarh 2y ago
How does the UK have the "same policy". "Provide shelter" here does not mean a shelter in the UK sense. In Finland, the "Housing First" approach means giving them a private flat.

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.

closewith 2y ago
> This is an important bit that people will usually fail to consider. This is explicitly covered by Housing First, which does not involve shared shelter accommodation. Instead, the point is that every homeless person gets their own apartment, without preconditions.
- pydry 2y ago
  This is also why the UK is very, very far away from housing first. The war on affordable housing is alive and well there. Pretending that guaranteeing shelter where you are at significant risk of being raped and robbed is almost the same thing as guaranteeing an apartment of your own is dishonest. There isn't really another way to describe it.
- MSFT_Edging 2y ago
  Which is actually great for a huge number of people driven to homelessness. If it's implemented in a way where it can act fast without years of waiting lists, it'd be hugely beneficial to people recently knocked off their feet being able to recover without falling deeper.
safety1st 2y ago
Are the budgets so small that they can't afford to provide each tenant with their own lockbox? I feel like being able to secure a small amount of personal property is the sort of thing which would pay for itself in terms of enabling people to get back on their feet and get out of the shelter faster
- MSFT_Edging 2y ago
  Sometimes a small lockbox isn't enough when you carry everything you have to your name on your back everywhere you go.

closewith 2y ago

> The UK also has the same policy. This is the opposite to the policy in most councils in the UK, which generally only offer temporary shelter and only with preconditions. The Finnish housing-first policy was implemented as UK-style policies were failing, as they are failing now in the UK. > 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. A Housing-first policy has only been trialled by ~15 councils in the UK, and it has been shown to work in all of them. It's much more expensive that the UK's traditional shelter approach, which is partly why it's not national policy.

drcongo 2y ago
Thanks for this clarification. The parent made a lot of interesting points but this very wrong statement at the start made it harder to trust the rest of it.

benrutter 2y ago

The UK doesn't yet have "housing first" programmes beyond pilots (not sure about Scotland in that): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-first-pilot-national-evaluation-reports https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-first-pil... I used to work in housing homeless people around 4 years ago, so things may have changes since then, if you're volunteering now you can probably tell me if any of these practices have changed: - Own accomodation was only possible after a proven track record in hostels - Many hostel accomodation places only possible after being "counted" homeless (need to be verified as sleeping rough) - Housing benefit paid directly to the tenant, and if they fail to manage finances (including if there benefits are paused due to missing a form or not filling in a letter in time) they are liable to be evicted from social housing - use of drugs is normally evictable in hostel situations causing a vicious cycle (I don't want to imply the UK is the worst country for social housing, there's some great work, but also some really sad realities that often go unadressed)

Jolter 2y ago

You write “You can give these people houses but without treatment they will still be begging on the street.” Your choice of words makes me wonder whether you would agree that an addict who sleeps in an apartment is better off than an addict who freezes their ass off in an alley at night. Maybe solving for housing first is a way to eliminate some of the suffering in the world. By demanding that their life “is in order” before providing housing, I think we are demanding the impossible from someone who clearly is not capable of making perfect choices.

balamatom 2y ago
"Here I am, working my ass off, true-believing in the eventual payoff of all that delayed gratification, stressing myself sick over making the Right Choices in this unwinnable game - and someone who is clearly not capable of making Right Choices gets their problems solved for free? The sheer audacity!" I feel like the cognitive dissonance between the above line of thought and the social expectation to demonstrate "kindness", "generosity", "compassion" is at the root of many people's rejection of an universal social safety net. Can't let themselves realize that a homeless beggar on crack might not only be just as human, but in some ways even a more genuine human being than your garden-variety obedient nine-to-fiver with a bullshit job and toxic family in 4 kinds of debt to cokehead bankerbros. Unfortunately, not getting one's fundamental assumptions challenged is very often a much more powerful motivator than any desire to actually reduce the actual suffering of actual beings.
- BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
  That's not what cognitive dissonance is. That's a dissonance between what people truly think and what they want/need to display. Nice closing joke, though, got a laugh out of me!
  - pmdulaney 2y ago
    No, I think the poster's notion of cognitive dissonance is more correct than yours. Cognitive dissonance refers to the anxiety caused by attempting to embrace two different convictions or beliefs that are incompatible with each other.

bko 2y ago

> One alternative would be to prescribe heroin which I think could work We generally accept the principal that making something cheaper and easier results in more of this behavior. Few examples - subsidize corn results in more corn products like corn syrup in our food - make school loans cheaper and more available to students results in more people going to school - make guns more available and easier to get results in more guns on the street But when it comes to making it easier for people to fuel their addiction and live a more comfortable life centered around a dangerous chemical, some question that this relationship exists. I've watched videos where someone interviews people on the streets in Philadelphia which provides a lot of services around facilitating drug use and they're just living their life as addicts and pretty much okay with their status quo. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make the lives of addicts more comfortable. But we should accept the proposition that subsidizing a behavior or lifestyle makes it more common on the margin.

skyyler 2y ago
The prescribed heroin doesn't need to be cheap or plentiful. It could be the same price as the street stuff. The point is to remove the activity from the criminal underworld. A pharmacist dispensing a medication is much less likely to sexually assault their client than a street level heroin dealer.
- catigula 2y ago
  Making criminal activity legal doesn't solve any of their problems except for the only problem that is entirely on them and disincentivizes their destructive behavior.
  - skyyler 2y ago
    Hey buddy! Your account is pretty new and seems to be mostly arguing with people. I don't really want to interact with that, so I'm writing this to politely tell you that I'll pass on this discussion with you. Have a good one!
    - 2y ago

bluGill 2y ago

> the number of people begging on the streets is still rising sharply, There is a lot of money to be made putting on raggedly clothing and standing on a street corner with a sign. Some of the people doing that really are in a bad place unable to support themselves any other way, but many of them are normal people with normal houses who have decided to make begging their job. (I was going to write full time job, but in a good location they are working part time and pulling in a full time income). I support someone busking on the street. I'm paying for the entertainment value there, if they provide me a smile or other enjoyment that is worth some money. For those who are in trouble I donate to local shelters which take care of people who need help and also have people who can determine if help other than shelter is needed. I'm not against someone in need begging on the streets, but if you could support yourself with a "normal job" then you are scamming me by begging. Local shelters are an easy work around for that. While there are also scams in the shelters, they get audited once in a while.

psychoslave 2y ago

>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. The silver bullet for what? Stop letting people die of cold in the street while there are plenty of empty building out there? I live in France and here we happily let kids which are attending school go sleep in a tent for the whole winter, more than 2000 according to the (probably minoring) official stats. Meanwhile we have MILLIONS of empty shelters. Kudo Finland and all countries that won’t let whatever fear and bullshit metrics make look elsewhere when political decisions lead to unbearable human conditions. https://www.publicsenat.fr/actualites/societe/2043-enfants-a-la-rue-un-chiffre-qui-explose-en-france https://www.publicsenat.fr/actualites/societe/2043-enfants-a... https://www.federationsolidarite.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/DP_Barometre-Enfants-a-la-rue-2024_FAS-UNICEF.pdf https://www.federationsolidarite.org/wp-content/uploads/2024... https://www.ecoreseau.fr/expressions/tribune-libre/la-tragedie-des-enfants-a-la-rue-une-urgence-nationale-2025-02-16-111272 https://www.ecoreseau.fr/expressions/tribune-libre/la-traged... https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/edition-numerique/chiffres-cles-du-logement-2022/5-logements-vacants https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/editi...

vidarh 2y ago

How does the UK have the "same policy". "Provide shelter" here does not mean a shelter in the UK sense. In Finland, the "Housing First" approach means giving them a private flat.