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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

#71

Post by mantas »

mjevans wrote: post #28
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…

More like we need to decentralize jobs. Otherwise real estate pricing is an neverending uphill battle.

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

#72

Post by TMWNN »

indy wrote: post #44
TMWNN wrote: post #16

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.

How effectively is that money spent? My cynical assumption would be that most of the money goes into employing political allies of the city of San Francisco.

> My cynical assumption would be that most of the money goes into employing political allies of the city of San Francisco.

More or less, yes. See my other comment on the city's homeless-industrial complex.

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

#73

Post by newjersey »

TMWNN wrote: post #16

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 think that number means anything.

1. Looking at the article, it looks like a proposal, not actual spending 2. Even if you spend it, I doubt the people get any of that money. Are these shelters paying market rate for their real estate? Some weird local property taxes that get absorbed right back?

I think overall, like many problems this one is something we should handle at a federal level.

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

#75

Post by dazc »

tempestn wrote: post #42
UberFly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

It definitely requires a lot of support, especially initially, to be successful; indeed, just providing the residence isn't enough. And of course not all homeless people are the same. Some are simply having a rough time and really do just need that leg up. Others are struggling with substance abuse, mental illness, or mental or physical disability, and will at a minimum need support to transition to a stable living s…

'And of course not all homeless people are the same.'

Although obvious, it's not something one hears that often. There is a perception here in the UK that a homeless person is someone who sits on a corner begging all day.

Ironically, a lot of these people are not actually homeless since they are where all the resources are targeted towards. Many real homeless people do not stand out from the crowd because, well why would you?

[Speaking from experience]

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

#76

Post by exDM69 »

eesmith wrote: post #37
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"?

No. The baseline weather hasn't significantly changed in the last 20 years. Before this policy there were more homeless people. One of the links is to https://www.themandarin.com.au/205500-finland-ends-homelessn... . > 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 ha…

This is not very accurate depiction.

The tent camps that were common 15 years ago were victims of human trafficking by southern European gangs. They were predominantly from a certain ethnic group from two southern European countries. They are moved to other countries when the weather gets cold and come back in the spring.

Street homelessness was not common before the housing first doctrine, there were shelters.

Housing first is the new doctrine because it is cheaper than shelters in the long run.

Someone living in the streets and shelters is unable to care for themself because they spend all their time, money and effort trying to stay warm, fed and clean. Once they have a place to sleep, cook, wash and keep their stuff safe, they have resources to address their own wellbeing.

When they were sleeping rough, any resources spent on their wellbeing went down the drain. And more resources needed to address the damage to the society.

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

#77

Post by dcow »

ojbyrne wrote: post #40
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…

> 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 The article is from a Canadian newspaper. It is from Toronto, which, for Canada, has relatively mild winters. But it’s still Canada.

that country refers to Finland from the GP's previous sentence.

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

#78

Post by mach1ne »

misja111 wrote: post #43
UberFly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

The houses which are given to homeless are mostly concentrated in certain area's. So if they cause problems, which of course they do, they don't bother 'normal' families. Those area's are pretty bad, but they're not as dangerous as e.g. in the US. I guess it's because the addicts are mostly alcoholics and they get just enough government money to buy their daily booze.

I’m Finnish and this is not my understanding. Finland has a specific policy that every time a new neighbourhood is constructed, a percentage of those houses are allocated for the municipal government, who then rent them for these less fortunate folk. This means that the problems aren’t concentrated but distributed. It’s part of the larger ideology of equality in Finland, which is that the extremes in both good and bad are softened.

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

#79

Post by usernew »

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…

[dead]

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

#80

Post by exDM69 »

misja111 wrote: post #43
UberFly wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

The houses which are given to homeless are mostly concentrated in certain area's. So if they cause problems, which of course they do, they don't bother 'normal' families. Those area's are pretty bad, but they're not as dangerous as e.g. in the US. I guess it's because the addicts are mostly alcoholics and they get just enough government money to buy their daily booze.

This is incorrect.

There are only a few houses for this purpose in the Helsinki Area, and they are actually in quite nice locations and far from each other.

No-one in their right mind would live in these houses if they have an alternative, but the problems don't affect the wider area. Some restlessness in the immediate vicinity, but not that bad.

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