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

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

#111

Post by maccard » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:35 AM UTC

ricardobayes wrote: post #88

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…

Spain also has relatively few homeless, at least compared to some other European countries. They have made it "de facto" legal to break in to an empty, unused home. If you squat a home, proceedings can take years to get you out of there. The only way to get an express eviction is if the owner reports it in the first 72 hours of people moving in. So no wonder you see bars on every single house window and alarms.

> if the owner reports it in the first 72 hours

So I could literally go away for a long weekend and come back and be homeless? That's _way_ too short!

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

#112

Post by sremani » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:37 AM UTC

deanc wrote: post #99

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…

This is a nuanced issue and I agree with what you wrote. I live in Finland. Some additional thoughts: - The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions. - The state vs government system in the US means it's every state for themselves when solving social issues. This is seen in states actively shipping homeless people to warmer climate states in order to make the…

>> The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level.

True. Just for some comparison, if Finland was a metropolitan in US, it would be ranked 10th. Above Phoenix metro and Below Atlanta Metro. I understand the good intentions of people trying to show case 'Scandinavian countries' as a model. They miss many things including Scale.

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

#113

Post by Sharlin » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:42 AM UTC

misja111 wrote: post #84

mach1ne wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ba…

Thanks, I didn't know that. I'm not Finnish but have stayed in the Helsinki area a lot. There were certain area's in e.g. Tikkurila and Jakomaeki which were pretty bad, and Finnish people told me it was because many alcoholics lived there in state housing. So I supposed that state housing was concentrated in certain area's.

This segregation of people based on social class (as well as ethnicity and/or native/immigrant divide) is a big social problem that was unfortunately exacerbated by poor policy choices made in past decades. Today it is recognized that developments should mix people from different backgrounds and income levels in order to not create neglected "problem neighborhoods".

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

#114

Post by IOT_Apprentice » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:43 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #7

6nf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not true in many US cities too?

There is a reason west coast cities are the most popular greyhound destinations.

In the US, many states put homelessness people on buses to western states like California. They don’t want to deal with them in their own states and then complain about how NY and especially California have dirty streets and homeless problems. The cognitive ignorance is amazing.

The US has many institutional problems in sectors that impact life. No nationalized healthcare, very short training of police officers with no federal standards & longer programs as they have in the EU or other industrialized nations.

We have a prison industrial complex where we imprison more people than ANY other country.

And we now have a fully broken political system. Between Citizens United unleashing unlimited dark money & a 2 party system where it is more important NOT to do anything involving improving things other than tax cuts for our wealthiest.

Homelessness due to unemployment, bankruptcy, medical bankruptcy or mental/psychological issues are obvious results.

There is tremendous room for improvement across all areas, but there is too much institutional & corporate influence in maintaining the status quo.

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

#115

Post by exDM69 » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:45 AM UTC

misja111 wrote: post #106

exDM69 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a different matter. Municipalities own a significant amount of housing available for rent. These are available for anyone but there are societal reasons why someone might be preferred (e.g. single mother), while others are in the queue. These are not the housing units given to the homeless. They are run by organizations and charities together in collaboration with municipal social workers. There are two or th…

> There are two or three houses like this in Helsinki. So are you saying that two or three houses were enough to solve homelessness in Helsinki?

That's two or three apartment blocks, so maybe 200-500 apartments? Don't have exact figures at hand.

The municipally owned rental housing (available to anyone) which you talk about, together with different forms of social support help people from falling into homelessness in the first place.

Those few apartment blocks used for the "housing first" scheme are the help people out of homelessness. These houses are not normal rental apartments, and have social workers present, etc. These are not available for rent for anyone, and no-one would voluntarily choose to live in one of these if given alternatives. They are somewhere between a shelter and a normal apartment.

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

#116

Post by tfourb » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:45 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #92

ricardobayes wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain also has relatively few homeless, at least compared to some other European countries. They have made it "de facto" legal to break in to an empty, unused home. If you squat a home, proceedings can take years to get you out of there. The only way to get an express eviction is if the owner reports it in the first 72 hours of people moving in. So no wonder you see bars on every single house window and alarms.

> They have made it "de facto" legal to break in to an empty, unused home. If you squat a home, proceedings can take years to get you out of there. Same for France

Not at all the same in Germany, but even as a property owner, I see some justification for effectively legalizing squatting in unused buildings. It would create some incentive for property owners to invest and rent out buildings, or otherwise sell them cheaply. Ideally this would be formalized and matched with a proper framework, i.e. municipalities can easily buy unused properties at a nominal cost, property owners can "convert" squatters into renters (who actually own rent) by bringing the property up to a minimum standard (which in turn the squatter would have to accept or move out), etc.

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

#117

Post by chii » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:46 AM UTC

deanc wrote: post #99

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…

This is a nuanced issue and I agree with what you wrote. I live in Finland. Some additional thoughts: - The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions. - The state vs government system in the US means it's every state for themselves when solving social issues. This is seen in states actively shipping homeless people to warmer climate states in order to make the…

> also cold in many places in the US ... so people die all the time there too.

The cold climate locations in the US does not have homeless during the winter, because they move away to warmer climates.

There's no warmer climate to be in for Finland.

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

#118

Post by tfourb » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:47 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #91

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…

> That's definitely something other countries can learn from. Other countries with totally different problems and different reasons for homelessness will learn what from that exactly?

That the first step of resolving someone's homelessness is to provide them with a home (and then obviously don't stop there but provide additional support where needed). Who would have thought?

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

#119

Post by Timon3 » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:47 AM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #55

ddoolin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even from a selfish perspective, I expect "solving" homelessness would ultimately save money for taxpayers, when you consider all of the police and healthcare resources that go into it now, as well as the negative effects on communities. But it would take a lot of time and consistent effort to get there, and the costs would be a lot more obvious and direct than the benefits. Not sure I agree on student loans though.…

This kind of selfishness is not about yourself getting more, it's about others getting less. As harsh as it sounds, this is the center of many political ideas. This is what happens when you start from "we should do X", instead of "I want things to be Y, so let's find out how to best get there". Just think about the droves of people fighting to teach abstinence in schools, although studies have shown time and time again it leads to more abortions!

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

#120

Post by exDM69 » Fri, May 05, 2023, 7:54 AM UTC

misja111 wrote: post #105

exDM69 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

According to https://world-habitat.org/news/our-blog/helsinki-is-still-le... , there were 3000 houses in 2022 for this purpose in the Helsinki Area. > and they are actually in quite nice locations and far from each other. The area's near Helsinki were I've been and where I was told by Finnish people were a lot of state houses, were certainly not nice locations. There were alcoholics everywhere and the area was visibl…

The source you refer to is talking about municipal housing, which is just normal rental housing owned by municipalities. There is indeed a lot of those and it sure helps keeping the homelessness down together with social support.

There are areas with high concentrations of municipal housing built in 1970s and 1980s, and this is generally considered a mistake in urban planning as there are concentrations of low-income, low-education residents, which isn't a positive for the area.

But I reiterate: this is normal housing available to everyone. You gotta pay your rent and behave or you get evicted. The municipality is just the landlord here.

The supported housing for the homeless is just a few housing units (apartment blocks), and they aren't normal housing. Examples of this kind of housing is Sininauhasäätiö (org), Ruusulankatu (address) and Diakonissalaitos, Helsinginkatu.