31–40 of 254 posts
The city of San Francisco spends $70,000 annually per homeless person! https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci... > The homeless there are homeless because severe mental and addiction issues cause them to reject help, not because resources aren't available.
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…
To be clear, there are many types of homeless in the US. But the ones that get the most attention and seem to cause the most problems are those pushed into mental illness by drug use. And, yes, drug use does not always cause mental illness and many mentally ill are not on drugs, but as those of us with direct experience with meth and other 'hard' drug users can attest to, a meth habit is not conducive to mental wellness. There is an acute phase of reality detachment that gets better with cessation, but even then, the hard core meth addicts I've known have mental scars that linger indefinitely.
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…
Welfare programs are not wealth redistribution but income redistribution.
The city of San Francisco spends $70,000 annually per homeless person! https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci... > The homeless there are homeless because severe mental and addiction issues cause them to reject help, not because resources aren't available.
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…
Europe should seriously invest to develop tech in other cities/countries as well and not expect everyone to squeeze in for jobs in the places that are already the most overcrowded.
If you're literally homeless in Finland you would die during winter season? Could that be a contributing factor to the "success"?
> In 2008, you could see tent villages and huts standing between trees in the parks of Helsinki. Homeless people had built makeshift homes in the middle of Finland’s capital city. They were exposed to harsh weather conditions.
> Since the 1980s, Finnish governments had been trying to reduce homelessness with the building of short-term shelters. However, long-term homeless people were still left out. ...
> But in 2008 the Finnish government introduced a new policy for the homeless with the ‘Housing First’ concept. Since then, the number of people affected by homelessness has fallen sharply.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>less objections to social welfare programs aka wealth distribution Welfare programs are not wealth redistribution but income redistribution.
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…
The article is from a Canadian newspaper. It is from Toronto, which, for Canada, has relatively mild winters. But it’s still Canada.