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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

#121

Post by justin66 »

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.

> People are only forced if they start being dangerous to other people.

I assume this isn't really true, and that the standard in Finland is that they're institutionalized if they're a danger to other people or themselves. The latter part is tricky, though. A person who is clearly in danger of killing themselves with a razor blade can be committed. A person who is in danger of drinking themselves to death on the sidewalk, perhaps not.

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

#122

Post by collyw »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #86
Synaesthesia wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Woop, there's the "socialism is a slippery slope to communism" argument.

Isn't socialism supposed to be the stepping stone to communism (but usually ends up in totalitarianism instead)?

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

#123

Post by u678u »

austincheney wrote: post #7

The 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…

Just another city run by Democrats. Seriously I'm a blue voter myself but its beyond parody how Democrats screw up their own cities like this.

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

#124

Post by ido »

collyw wrote: post #120
ido wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the German speaking countries the word Gypsy ("Zigeuner" in German) is considered a racial slur similarly (if not quite as strongly) ill-considered in usage as N*gger is in English. There aren't a lot of Romani in the US, which I think is why Americans aren't aware this is a word you should avoid (but I'm pretty sure it is also considered a slur in English in Britain and Ireland).

I don't think anyone is particularly bothered by their race, rather their behaviour. (In the UK there are both Irish gypsies and Romani gypsies, both have a bad reputation).

The racist part is generalizing the behaviour of some people to everyone of that ethnicity. I'm sure a few decades ago you'd easily find plenty of Europeans telling you they are not bothered by the Jews' ethnicity per-se but by their behaviour.

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

#125

Post by guerrilla »

Cloudef wrote: post #32
guerrilla wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that woman carry all the stuff from one city to another? Does she take buses and they just wait for her to load it all?

She walks with all that luggage. She sets up the luggage in queue, and takes the last luggage, brings it to the front, and repeats it until she gets to the next town.

Wow, that's a trip. Is there somewhere I can read more about this? I'll google translate it if all you got is in Finnish but I can read Swedish too.

Edit: Reverse image search tells me her name is Laukku-Leena. https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/b225828d-c1b1-40b5-b7b1-a...

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

#126

Post by dragonwriter »

collyw wrote: post #122
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woop, there's the "socialism is a slippery slope to communism" argument.

Isn't socialism supposed to be the stepping stone to communism (but usually ends up in totalitarianism instead)?

> Isn't socialism supposed to be the stepping stone to communism

The “socialism” stage of Marxist Communism, which in Leninist practice (which differs sharply from the dictates of Marxism from which it was adapted, but shares this and some other elements of theory) is totalitarianism (not a stepping stone to it) is supposed to be a stepping stone to the perfected end state in that theoretical framework. But neither the Marxist nor especially the Leninist form of that is the same thing as the “socialism” pursued by non-Marxist socialists, and in non-Marxist socialism there's no consistent role of socialism as a stepping stone to something else, whether utopian Communism or some other end-state.

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

#127

Post by oblio »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #105
oblio wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ethnicit…

True. I checked and Helsinki is as far from Munich as it is from Bucharest, to choose a semi-random comparison point.

I guess perception will shift as these regions become more touristic.

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

#128

Post by collyw »

ido wrote: post #124
collyw wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is particularly bothered by their race, rather their behaviour. (In the UK there are both Irish gypsies and Romani gypsies, both have a bad reputation).

The racist part is generalizing the behaviour of some people to everyone of that ethnicity. I'm sure a few decades ago you'd easily find plenty of Europeans telling you they are not bothered by the Jews' ethnicity per-se but by their behaviour.

Godwins law.

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

#129

Post by mbg721 »

rendall wrote: post #111
ido wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the German speaking countries the word Gypsy ("Zigeuner" in German) is considered a racial slur similarly (if not quite as strongly) ill-considered in usage as N*gger is in English. There aren't a lot of Romani in the US, which I think is why Americans aren't aware this is a word you should avoid (but I'm pretty sure it is also considered a slur in English in Britain and Ireland).

It's pretty common knowledge to be a slur in the US too

That varies a lot regionally. Plenty of people use "gipped" for "ripped off", and "Zigeuner Schnitzel" is on the menu at US German-cuisine restaurants. For once, it's us who haven't caught up with the magical outrage words.

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

#130

Post by Jochim »

sharpneli wrote: post #41
flagrant wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. When you posted this hateful nonsense, did you think nobody would bring you up on it? Can you provide anything to back up this assertion?

How is this hateful nonsense? Every citizen is eligible for that support. Do you perhaps live here so you can say it's not true? Sure it's not always perfect, errors in bureaucracy happens sometimes but getting social security is the default. If you accept it you get a house.

I can see people taking issue with the word "prefer" in relation to getting drunk. It makes the tone of the OP seem dismissive of the fact that by the point you're putting alcohol/drugs before shelter and food you're no longer expressing a preference but rather a symptom of mental illness: addiction, depression, or otherwise.
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