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Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

economist.com

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Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#51

Post by nabla9 »

oblio wrote: post #25
nabla9 wrote: post #19

Related news: European Court of Human Rights just made important ruling that decriminalizes begging. Making it criminal to be poor is against human rights. ----- ECHR 021 (2021) 19.01.2021 (Judgment Lacatus v. Switzerland) The penalty imposed on the applicant for begging in public breached the Convention In today’s Chamber judgment 1 in the case of Lăcătuşv. Switzerland (application no. 14065/15) the European Court o…

This means that anti-panhandling/anti-begging laws will become void soon in several countries. This could lead to some interesting results if it's true that some branches of organized crime use organized begging.

Yes. This is very exiting.

The ruling creates real incentives to attack real problems, instead of brushing them out of sight.

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#52

Post by agumonkey »

Cloudef wrote: post #42
agumonkey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and rent Some are just deep into a depression pit. I agree that some people are just weak, but most people hitting homelesness went through big losses that damages your motivation to lead a normal life. Grudge, sadness, loneliness, grief, abuse .. don't conclude too fast.

The thing is that the "home first" movement in Finland states that home isn't a trophy that you get once you fix your life. Home and food is essential to get your life on track, and home is given even for alcoholic people. But if they don't pay their rent, and even give up on social welfare to pay the rent for you, what can you do?

I think it's unrelated, people like that are not ready to function 'normally', they need a shelter, asylum, hospital. It's an emotional problem more than material.

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#53

Post by Cloudef »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #36
Cloudef wrote: post #6

Note that the "homeless" people in Finland are mainly people who refuse to accept support from the social welfare, this is because they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and rent. The social welfare eventually suggests a different system for such people: pay the rent for them and give a special card that can be used for anything except alcohol and cigarette. If the people keep refusing that other opt…

> the Romanian beggars you see in Helsinki streets. While Finns tend to use the term "Romanian beggars", this can be inaccurate and misleading. I understand that this confusion could have arisen because "Romani people" and "Romanian people" sound similar in Finnish and some of them are from Romania. However, many of them come from Bulgaria as well – a very large community comes from the Bulgarian town of Pleven seaso…

Thanks, I edited my post.

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#54

Post by grumple »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #29
adaisadais wrote: post #13

Homelessness does not beget homelessness. It is most important to note that. Our society is so focused at solving the primary symptoms without ever diving deeper into the root cause of things like this (looking at you Sf). To experience homelessness one must have first experienced a reason to now be homeless. In modern western society we have many failsafes that prevent people from becoming totally dislodged from a p…

It should be pretty elementary to solve homelessness, as Finland has shown. There's also no reason we can't have full employment. The Soviet Union had it.

The USSR ran enterprises at a loss and kept workers idle though. And then their economy and government collapsed.

Not exactly a recipe for success.

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#55

Post by Cloudef »

agumonkey wrote: post #52
Cloudef wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that the "home first" movement in Finland states that home isn't a trophy that you get once you fix your life. Home and food is essential to get your life on track, and home is given even for alcoholic people. But if they don't pay their rent, and even give up on social welfare to pay the rent for you, what can you do?

I think it's unrelated, people like that are not ready to function 'normally', they need a shelter, asylum, hospital. It's an emotional problem more than material.

If they don't cause harm to other people, you can't really force them or tell them they are living their life wrong.

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#56

Post by Delk »

Cloudef wrote: post #26
Delk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there's truth to that, it's worth noting that most of those homeless people are suffering from ill mental health and/or substance dependence. You make it sound like they just shrugged and decided that that's the life they want, but I don't think that's how people end up homeless. There are decisions involved, but they're probably not quite as voluntary as that.

Those people are given help, but if they refuse that, there's nothing you can really do. People are only forced if they start being dangerous to other people.

I'm not saying you can necessarily do anything; in some cases you can't. I'm just saying that things might not be under those people's voluntary control and decision-making either once mental health issues or substance abuse problems go far enough.

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#57

Post by giantg2 »

jedimastert wrote: post #11
jswizzy wrote: post #3

Anyone who thinks that just giving the homeless shelter fixes the problem doesn't understand the problem to begin with.

No, but it's almost impossible to get out of homelessness without it. It's really hard to do anything more with your day if you have to spend most of it making sure you have enough calories and a "safe" place to sleep. This doesn't fix everything, but there is a not-as-small-as-you-might-think subset of people for whom the only reason they continue to be homeless is they can't do anything other than figure out what t…

"for whom the only reason they continue to be homeless is they can't do anything other than figure out what they're gonna eat that day"

I'm not sure I believe this. Why did they become homeless in first place? With most there is an underlying issue. It might be that they are a felon, addict, or other medical issue. It's not that hard to ask for a job while also asking for money or food. Especially if you're already going to food establishment dumpster or begging outside of them.

The person I know the best who homeless had a combination of issues. He was in a coma and lost his job. He was also required to pay child support and the bank account ran dry during that time. A warrant was issued and he was arrested. You can't find any "good" jobs with a record and warrants being issued. He basically gave up on the system and finds it easier to just let family support him.

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#58

Post by cxcorp »

nabla9 wrote: post #51
oblio wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means that anti-panhandling/anti-begging laws will become void soon in several countries. This could lead to some interesting results if it's true that some branches of organized crime use organized begging.

Yes. This is very exiting. The ruling creates real incentives to attack real problems, instead of brushing them out of sight.

Unfortunately I would imagine that it's still easier to spread a narrative blaming the EU than to attack the real problems.

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#59

Post by [deleted] »

jeofken wrote: post #43
Cloudef wrote: post #6

Note that the "homeless" people in Finland are mainly people who refuse to accept support from the social welfare, this is because they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and rent. The social welfare eventually suggests a different system for such people: pay the rent for them and give a special card that can be used for anything except alcohol and cigarette. If the people keep refusing that other opt…

To be fair to the reputation of Romanians on HN, the beggars and squatters around Finland, Norway, and Sweden are not ethnic Romanians even if they often are born there, but come from the Zigeuner/Gypsy/Roma people.

[deleted]

Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing

#60

Post by wing-_-nuts »

Cloudef wrote: post #26
Delk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there's truth to that, it's worth noting that most of those homeless people are suffering from ill mental health and/or substance dependence. You make it sound like they just shrugged and decided that that's the life they want, but I don't think that's how people end up homeless. There are decisions involved, but they're probably not quite as voluntary as that.

Those people are given help, but if they refuse that, there's nothing you can really do. People are only forced if they start being dangerous to other people.

I'm not familiar with Finland but to those people have access to mental health services? In the US, a lot of folks who are addicted to drugs and alcohol are written off as moral failures when in reality, the drugs and alcohol are simply used to self medicate and numb the pain of their lives.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be any accountability for addicts, but the fact that we completely write them off as a society says more about us than it does about them.

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