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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

#261

Post by jacobr1 »

caturopath wrote: post #247
thebean11 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Psychiatrists are mostly doing medication management because that’s where they’re most effective. I think it's money: insurance will shell a lot more $/hour if they do 15 minute medication appointments instead of hour therapy + medication appointments.

Integrating counselling and medical doctoring is a strange idea, and it's somewhat weird that it's even as much of a thing as it is. Drug-focused psychiatrists are certainly going to be a thing so long as med school is so costly and med schools conspire to keep the supply of doctors low.

Increased secularization is also probably a factor. I presume going to your clergy for assistance was previously more common. I'm sure that kind of care had mixed effectiveness, but suspect it less available and norms are bit different for initiating that kind of conversation.

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

#262

Post by netrus »

Merem wrote: post #192
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).

Never heard of "Zigeuner" being considered a racial slur. I've usually heard it/hear it when it comes to certain people (actually, two varieties even - one tied to the "Zirkus" and the other one being a group of "Landstreicher" basically) but that's not tied to an ethnicity or whatever. A more prominent example would be the word "Neger" where the media tells us it's a terrible word, insulting, racial slur etc etc, ye…

So it is pretty identical to the n-word, in that it is a term for a minority that is rejected by the minority, and some members of the majority decide not to care, because they "do not mean it in a negative way". I am left to wonder how "please don't call me that" is not sufficient to end these discussions.

For non-Germans reading along, "Neger" used to be a common word, but is not anymore. Language is changing, society is changing, but as always, some will be left behind. If your grandpa says "neger" you gently correct him, if your peer says "neger", you are in bad company.

"Zigeuner" is less extreme, because awareness for the term is more recent. I was told in high school 15 years ago to avoid it, so everyone should have gotten the message by now. It shows a lack of education, mostly. Germans killed 200k+ Romani in the last century, so it not a wild claim that when our grandparents cautioned us about Zigeuner, that might have had something to do with racism.

(20 years ago I had friends who called Schokoküsse "Negerküsse", and my parents told me not to do that. I simply do not understand why people insist on calling them "Negerküsse", when they know it's hurtful to some. It's a shitty sweet targeted at children).

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

#263

Post by hypertele-Xii »

Youden wrote: post #147
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…

I agree with the sentiment but based on the text of the ruling, I can't agree with the ruling itself [0]. Missing from your summary is: - "The applicant, Violeta-Sibianca Lăcătuş, is a Romanian national who was born in 1992 and lives in Bistrita-Nasaud (Romania)." - "In 2011 Ms Lăcătuş, who was unable to find work, began asking for charity in Geneva." Why was somebody who "lives in" Romania begging in Geneva? Would s…

I met an elder romanian begger couple and they told me that EU rights don't matter for them. In practice they simply cannot receive the benefits they are entitled to at home, because they are of some kind of discriminated against minority (gypsies or something).

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

#264

Post by ACow_Adonis »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #209
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except we also have additional data from overseas. Australia has comparatively mild winters and my family is originally from Queensland where some of the "worst" towns for unemployment and disadvantage clearly have a bit of a "paradise" effect (that is to say, if you're going to live on unemployment, you might as well live where there's good weather, fishing and swimming year round and prices are a bit cheaper than t…

It sounds like you're aware that, according to official statistics, homelessness is higher per capita in Australia than in California or the US as a whole. I'm open to the idea that this might be due to definitional or measurement problems, but you've gotta explain what those problems are, not just assert that they must exist. The obvious alternative explanation is that Americans might simply be less tolerant of meas…

sorry, but HN isn't a great medium for long technical posts :)

The basic issue is that Australia naive measurements and numbers carry a three tier definition of homelessness: at the lowest level you have what we call "sleeping rough" which is probably the concept closest to what most people and Americans think of as "homeless". But the Australian definition also includes the likes of insecure accommodation and inappropriate accommodation: couch surfers, people living in accommodation with inadequate living conditions, people sleeping in their cars, in socially provisioned homeless accommodation and emergency/crisis accommodation (domestic violence, youth, men and aged issues were the traditional breakdown of most services in my day).

To compare between the two nations from official sources you have to bring them back onto a somewhat comparable basis.

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

#265

Post by offtop5 »

shuckles wrote: post #258
offtop5 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll say this as someone who's been evicted twice, the number one reason the vast majority of people end up homeless is because they don't have money. This can happen for a small array of reasons, let's say you're in a bad marriage and your spouse leaves. You simply can't make the rent anymore, you're now homeless. 19 years old, and you're getting into really bad fights with your parents, you're now homeless. Develop…

In California, you have: Social Security, re-entry services provided by the CCDR, EBT, Medicaid, cash through county assistance programs, and a large number of non profit providers of aid.

Then why does California have so many homeless ?

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

#266

Post by r00fus »

HNfriend234 wrote: post #234
jandrese wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked out great for Republicans. The spike in crime rates made their "tough on crime" message resonate. When you're homeless and mentally ill it's basically guaranteed that you're going to have fights with the police.

Tough on crime isn't purely a republican stance though. Democrats worked hand-in-hand with republicans in the late 1980s to push through many tough on crime policies. This was due to crime skyrocketing in the 1980s due to cheap and abundant crack cocaine flooding America's streets.

If you replace Republican with Conservative it works. Hell, our current President is debt-hating Conservative if you view it by the bills he's authored/supported as Senator in the past 30 years.

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

#267

Post by klodolph »

thebean11 wrote: post #225
klodolph wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an observation. The mental health system doesn’t have much capacity to begin with. Even for middle-class folk with insurance it can be very hard to get treatment. There is a shortage of mental health professionals which is projected to get worse. Psychiatrists are mostly doing medication management because that’s where they’re most effective. Following the path of getting treatment—everything including diagnosis…

> Psychiatrists are mostly doing medication management because that’s where they’re most effective. I think it's money: insurance will shell a lot more $/hour if they do 15 minute medication appointments instead of hour therapy + medication appointments.

Going to dissent here—we need psychiatrists doing medication management because there are so many medications today, and so many previously untreatable conditions which are treatable with modern medications.

If we switched to one-stop therapy + meds, the psychiatrist shortage would be worse.

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

#268

Post by dragonwriter »

e40 wrote: post #215
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #206

I'm in the US. I was homeless as a teenager (not by choice). I live adjacent to a major homeless community (not by design). My ex left our family to join the homeless community (she struggles with mh issues). I have some observations. We could sharply reduce homeless numbers here if we had in-patient mental health facilities (for non-wealthy), comprehensive housing aid and politically powerful job placement programs.…

In-patient services for mental health were decimated in the 80's. Reagan cut the funding and cities were flooded with homeless + mentally ill people. I was at UC Berkeley at the time this happened. There were so many seriously mentally ill folks on the street. It was sad.

> In-patient services for mental health were decimated in the 80's. Reagan cut the funding and cities were flooded with homeless

Deinstitutionalization was a broadly supported policy, especially by advocates of the mentally ill; conditions of the widespread institutionalization were horrible.

The failure to create substitute systems to address the easily forseeable consequences of deinstitutionalization was obviously a problem, but not a uniquely Republican one (though certainly Republicans were more opposed to fixing the problems once they materialized.)

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

#269

Post by imtringued »

jswizzy wrote: post #3

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

If you give homeless people a home they aren't homeless anymore. Just in deep poverty which is a completely different type of problem.

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

#270

Post by crb002 »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #206

I'm in the US. I was homeless as a teenager (not by choice). I live adjacent to a major homeless community (not by design). My ex left our family to join the homeless community (she struggles with mh issues). I have some observations. We could sharply reduce homeless numbers here if we had in-patient mental health facilities (for non-wealthy), comprehensive housing aid and politically powerful job placement programs.…

I was taken political prisoner three times in the Broadlawns facility ran by Polk County Iowa - currently helping Federal Medicaid claw back the fraudulent $20k hospital bill. Lynchpins of the rampant political corruption is nepotism between Chief Justice Susan Larson Christensen/ brother 4th District Chief Judge Jeff Larson and Hon Mary Tabor/brother Chief Deputy Attorney General Eric Tabor.

What you speak of does exist, it's Medicaid - the issue is only in states like Iowa do you have such due process free statutes like Iowa Code 125/229 that magistrates can lock you up without solid evidence that the person is a true threat to themselves or others.

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