Anybody know about initiatives to build cabins instead of letting people sleep in the cold ?
Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
101–110 of 360 posts
Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without evidence, he stated that all homeless people in Finland are homeless because they would "prefer to get drunk". I don't think it's incorrect to describe this as hateful, because it's very clearly informed by a bias against homeless people rather than any real evidence. This is the equivalent of jumping into a discussion to say that Black people are poor because they "keep buying cellphones". It's not a serious…
> it's cloaked hatred. Homelessness causes suffering which is usually self-treated with substance abuse. This is not a hateful commentary. I'm not sure how a blanket characterization equates to "hate", when it's a lazy attribution due to indifference. Maybe disdain is the appropriate term.
It ascribes a characterisation to homeless people (that they would prefer to get drunk than have a home) that there is simply no evidence for. The comment blames homeless people for their own destitution purely based on the commenter's preconceived bias against homeless people.
Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#103The city of Austin, TX could be a case study of what not to do. I was remotely employed to company with offices in Austin in 2014-2015 and it was awesome to visit and walk around down town. I always had a blast. I visited Austin in 2019 and there were homeless people EVERYWHERE. Every green space and nearly every street corner seemed to be littered with homeless people. The difference crystal clear. Something in the…
To add some missing details on this, in 2018/19 the city council passed some ordinances that removed the criminality of some homeless activities. Specifically, they made it explicitly legal to camp in most public spaces (excluding parks) and they permit panhandling, sitting and sleeping on public sidewalks. So there's a lot of "campsites" downtown. A lot of tents, or just people in sleeping bags on the sidewalk. A lo…
Worth noting, before the city council legalized homeless camping there were literally zero tents.
Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here ya go [0] https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/220951/Mort... Check out page 845 showing death by alcohol poisoning is 5x higher in the homeless population of Finland than the whole of the country. FWIW, and anecdotally, my ancestry is Finnish and we are known for having issues with alcohol. The majority of my extended family has drinking issues. Within our Finnish-American community, it’s believed t…
Thanks, but I didn't ask for evidence that "alcohol poisoning is 5x higher in the homeless population", I asked for evidence that "people are mainly homeless in Finland because they would prefer to get drunk."
https://ysaatio.fi/en/housing-first-finland there's no extensive graphs, but this page mentions it briefly. There's also been some freelancer yle documents covering up some homeless people that mainly refuse the social benefits to get more money for their daily drinking. [1]
Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Investigating how Romanians often think and talk about the Roma people in their country may be more harmful to their reputation than thinking the beggars are non-Roma Romanians.
I don't think it's fair to single us out, though. This social problem, integration, is present in almost exactly the same way in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Serbia. To a lesser degree it's also present in Spain from what I know. It's far from a simple problem. As the Finns are discovering.
Finland is home to a centuries-old Roma community that arrived via Sweden. They too are seen as abusing social services and not integrating, the same general stereotypes as in southern Europe. (Members of this community can often be identified in Helsinki from their distinctive clothing, the women wear traditional skirts.)
So, Finns are already aware that Roma populations often live in tension with the major ethnicity of a country. However, the confusion about the ethnic makeup of Romania along with other Balkan countries persists due to the coincidentally similar names for these ethnicities, and lack of interest among the Finnish population about educating themselves about a region that seems far away and to which very few go to on holiday.
Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Investigating how Romanians often think and talk about the Roma people in their country may be more harmful to their reputation than thinking the beggars are non-Roma Romanians.
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Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#107Note 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…
I lived in Helsinki for a while. It's not a great place to be homeless because despite recently mild winters, it's just not a nice place to be living outside when most of the year it can drop to freezing temperatures (or well below) at night. Having people on the street freezing to death in the middle of the winter is not something that is very practical. And of course the whole system ensures that people are mostly taken care off regardless of their issues (alcohol, drugs, psychological issues, etc.). Food, shelter, medical care etc. are easily accessible.
Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks, but I didn't ask for evidence that "alcohol poisoning is 5x higher in the homeless population", I asked for evidence that "people are mainly homeless in Finland because they would prefer to get drunk."
https://ysaatio.fi/en/housing-first-finland there's no extensive graphs, but this page mentions it briefly. There's also been some freelancer yle documents covering up some homeless people that mainly refuse the social benefits to get more money for their daily drinking. [1] 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08FET347Tx4
This does not support your claim. It's pretty clear that you didn't have the evidence before you made the claim, and you don't have it now.
Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#109It is probably much harder being homeless in Finland than in San Francisco just from the weather. San Francisco is relatively mild, even in winter. Finland in winter gets pretty cold, and people are in severe danger of death or loss of body parts from frostbite.
Re: Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
He said mainly. No all. You do understand that everyone gets social security as money if they need. The problems happen if they are unable to use that money to pay the rent. And yes indeed the main reason is some sort of intoxicant use, as they rather get more stuff than use the money for rent. Legal debts are also not a reason not to pay rent, as one is protected from repaying them when it's about essentials. So tha…
I'll be happy to retract the "hateful" comment if anyone can provide evidence that "people are mainly homeless in Finland because they would prefer to get drunk".
We use two terms for homeless here. Strictly speaking if we just use the term homeless you're correct. 79% of them are not like that [ARA Asunnottomat 2019]. They're people like students bunking in a friends bed without a valid address or other short term issues, like the social security making a mistake, but they're eventually rectified. This means the homelessness has lasted for less than a year.
21% are long term homeless. And that's what people generally mean when they collegially use the term homeless. That's defined as homeless that has lasted for more than a year and has significant social or health component, such as substance abuse or mental illness. The thing about mental illness is that there is also treatment for them. The solution is different for them as for the substance abusers.
If you ever see a Finn begging it's pretty much always an alcoholic who wants more beer. That's because the mentally ill cannot really beg as they're either receiving treatment or if they have unfortunately slipped trough the cracks of the system they're also unable to beg for any extended period.
As for the scale of this problem. 2019 there were 961 persons listed in the long term homeless category. That's out of a population of 5.518 million in 2019. That's 0.017% of the whole population. Also, even out of them 584 live with someone, just not with an official address. They wouldn't be counted as homeless in US.
The actual amount of people in street on that category was 177. That's 0.003% of the population.