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Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

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Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#21

Post by ddoolin »

pavlov wrote: post #8

This Guardian story gives more detail on how the program works: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... Common objections to applying this policy elsewhere seem to be “We’re bigger than Finland” and “We’re not ethnically homogenous like Finland.” On the first point, 5M people isn’t really that small. It’s roughly the median population of an American state. On the second point, well… It does so…

Just IMO, many Americans probably don't think homeless people deserve free housing, because they have (the taxpayers) have to pay for their own housing and also contribute to homeless housing via taxes.

"Fuck you got mine" is real here. Just see the nauseating argument against discharging student loans.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#22

Post by HWR_14 »

kqr wrote: post #5
ip26 wrote: post #2

Utah had a similar outcome; house the homeless, and improve 80% of cases. I still bristle at the description “virtually end homelessness” - you buy them free housing and 20% still remain unhoused, is that “solved”? What happens next? What more can you do?

It's a bit unclear exactly what the 80 % figure measures, but according to TFA it's the lower bound of the fraction of people who got housing fully subsidised and is now pays their rent independently. Given that the homeless include people with serious problems, that only at most 20 % need ongoing subsidising sounds like a huge win to me.

The 80% seems to exclude people who need subsidies, but also those who moved out of the rental market entirely.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#23

Post by UberFly »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #19

I lived in Finland for a while. Being homeless in that country is pretty hard core in the winter. Which is a reason that sheltering people there is not a nice to have; you either shelter them or you collect their dead bodies in the morning. It's that simple. Places like Helsinki never had a large community of homeless people to begin with (natural selection). But it has plenty of social issues of course. Alcoholism i…

"simply providing proper housing to these people is a pragmatic alternative"

Did this "proper housing" come with any rules? What is the bar that keeps the homeless from being evicted? I know where I am these places quickly become severe crime hubs.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#24

Post by misja111 »

6nf wrote: post #4
bboygravity wrote: post #3

If you're literally homeless in Finland you would die during winter season? Could that be a contributing factor to the "success"?

Is this not true in many US cities too?

Yep, I guess this is part of the explanation why San Francisco has so many more homeless than, say, Seattle.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#25

Post by throwaway45631 »

pavlov wrote: post #8

This Guardian story gives more detail on how the program works: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... Common objections to applying this policy elsewhere seem to be “We’re bigger than Finland” and “We’re not ethnically homogenous like Finland.” On the first point, 5M people isn’t really that small. It’s roughly the median population of an American state. On the second point, well… It does so…

I think both are valid points: Finland has less inhabitants than London and besides maybe from Swedes, Russians and Lapps no large minority groups, of which the aforementioned most likely don’t instill ambiguity about how they obtained their citizenship and why. Studies show that homogenous countries have less objections to social welfare programs aka income redistribution [0].

[0] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/working-p...

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#26

Post by pyuser583 »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #17
ip26 wrote: post #2

Utah had a similar outcome; house the homeless, and improve 80% of cases. I still bristle at the description “virtually end homelessness” - you buy them free housing and 20% still remain unhoused, is that “solved”? What happens next? What more can you do?

First article I found said the SLC program was successful for 95% of those placed in a home. IIRC, the housing first program in Seattle was similarly effective. I agree that it’s not as exhaustive as some of the more boastful claims, but I think the better question to ask is why these programs have been cut in favor of far less effective and far more expensive ones.

Effective at what? I lived near a motel that was part of a “housing first” initiative in SF.

People treated the hotel like home base, and still spent their nights howling. I had to move the screaming was so loud.

Not to mention the drugs, human trafficking, etc.

In terms of environment, it didn’t deduce things like human feces on the street.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but the neighborhood was mostly unlivable.

That’s not a real solution.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#27

Post by bugglebeetle »

bboygravity wrote: post #3

If you're literally homeless in Finland you would die during winter season? Could that be a contributing factor to the "success"?

More people die of hypothermia in Los Angeles than New York because New York has a right to shelter, while Los Angeles does not. So, unfortunately, your just-so story doesn’t pan out.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-hypotherm...

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#28

Post by mjevans »

charcircuit wrote: post #18

If this has an 80% success rate we could give loans to the homeless so they can buy a house and price that success rate into the interest rate.

That won't magically make enough housing appear on the market. Many of the major cities where jobs can be found have a chronic shortage of housing, at all levels of value.

We need to build housing like there's a WAR effort, like there's an actual battle against homelessness by building enough homes for everyone who wants to live in an area. NIMBY and 'sense of character' are the major issues that prevent this, along with the perverse incentive of existing residents to prefer the rising 'value' of their house due to artificial market scarcity.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#29

Post by riffraff »

SanderNL wrote: post #9

I don’t know about Finland, but Dutch people already can’t find places to live. If you are unlucky financially and need government housing you will wait years if not a decade or more for something. If you can rent something you will pay €1000 for a modest place in a bad neighborhood. Given that a fair chunk of the population earns in the €1500-2000 range, that’s not a good prospect. Housing is not just something you…

Worth noting: population density for all of the Netherlands 532/km^2. The highest density in Finland, in the Greater Helsinki area, is 421.8/km^2. Finland does have a lot more space.

Still, Paris has a density of 690/km^2 and is not a hellscape, so the choice of not having more housing (and pushing down RE prices) is political, not a deity-given rule.

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