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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

#171

Post by zztop44 »

laserlight wrote: post #161
zztop44 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helsinki winter isn’t much colder than DC or New York, both of which have large year-round homeless populations.

This got me curious, so I compared [0]. To summarize, Helsinki's high tracks NYC's low. Helsinki is 6 -- 8 C (10 -- 14 F) colder than NYC in January -- February. [0] https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/91632~23912/Comparison-of...

I agree, it is definitely colder in Helsinki. But heavy snowfall and -12C (the NYC mean minimum coldest day temperature in January) is still extremely uncomfortable to sleep rough in. Yet many homeless people stay in New York year round.

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

#172

Post by 6nf »

jl6 wrote: post #6
6nf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not true in many US cities too?

Possibly, but in the US it’s relatively easy to move to a city with a milder winter climate.

So you're saying there's virtually no homelessness in US cities with very cold climate? Same as Finland?

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

#173

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ekianjo wrote: post #96
exDM69 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, most of the homelessness in Finland is driven by substance abuse and mental illness too. It's mostly alcohol, amphetamines (meth included), buprenorfine and benzos from Eastern European organized crime and fentanyl is not as common, but the landscape is similar.

if you don't have fentanyl you have no clue what the problem is.

Benzos are more addictive and far harder to get off off than fentanyl.

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

#174

Post by yunohn »

piva00 wrote: post #169
sremani wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Scale... Isn't the USA supposedly federalised states? So each state has a small enough scale to solve its issues, with an added benefit that countries in the EU don't have as easily: a federal government that can work to provide funding, coordination and national-level programs to solve the issues. The closest to that coordination is at the EU level itself which is much more complex and less powerful than the federal…

I’m not supporting the idea of USA exceptionalism, but scale /absolutely/ does matter. I’ve lived on most continents, and currently in the EU, I can see when even small increases in load on services leads to total breakdown. There’s a reason they are unable to sustain amidst immigration.

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

#175

Post by scotty79 »

sremani wrote: post #112
deanc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you mean that Phoenix Metro and every other place smaller should have fixed their homelessness as well as Finland or better already?

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

#176

Post by piva00 »

yunohn wrote: post #174
piva00 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scale... Isn't the USA supposedly federalised states? So each state has a small enough scale to solve its issues, with an added benefit that countries in the EU don't have as easily: a federal government that can work to provide funding, coordination and national-level programs to solve the issues. The closest to that coordination is at the EU level itself which is much more complex and less powerful than the federal…

I’m not supporting the idea of USA exceptionalism, but scale /absolutely/ does matter. I’ve lived on most continents, and currently in the EU, I can see when even small increases in load on services leads to total breakdown. There’s a reason they are unable to sustain amidst immigration.

Of course it matters, that's why I brought up the point that each state in the USA is supposedly small enough to have local governance, that they have enough state-level freedoms to solve localised problems and exactly why I compare the scale of Texas to all of the Nordics as they are very similar in GDP and population.

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

#177

Post by NeoTar »

maccard wrote: post #111
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.

> 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!

No.

The key word was "Empty and unused" - if you are living in a house (i.e. it is your primary residence) and take a vacation, it's not empty and unused.

It is a problem for landlords with empty properties, or for little used vacation homes. Although apparently there are alarms which will automatically call the police when someone breaks into your property which is apparently enough to trigger the 'within 72h' deadline.

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

#178

Post by iudqnolq »

otikik wrote: post #123
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…

> Shelters cost money and they have to be staffed and when they fill up you need to spend money on emergency shelters, which costs more money Yes but shelters can be privately run and then a corporation can make a profit from that, because private companies are more efficient than state-driven things. That a company makes profits more important than perpetuating the homeless problem, or waking up to frozen cadavers.…

Besides NYC, which is an outlier in all the wrong ways in this sort of space, I've never heard of private shelters. That's not to say people aren't getting rich of nonprofit shelters.

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

#179

Post by dagw »

Avamander wrote: post #144
sharkbird2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it fascinating how the higher-cost and therefore counter-intuitive alternative, can sometimes be the better choice, due to long-term secondary effects that doesn't show up on said paper. Reminds me of the value of developing your own advanced projects, which is a huge cost (and risk) for a country or a company, but which can pay off big time in the long run through developing advanced marketable industry, expo…

In a similar sense EU has mandated that wastewater is to be treated in even very small villages. For those same second-order improvements, a sewer system may sound like a luxury but it does avoid a lot of shit.

In a similar sense EU has mandated that wastewater is to be treated in even very small villages.

There are also second-order costs. I know people who live half the year in a 'very small village' (30-40 houses, no shops, no cars, no sewage system, water comes from wells) and these well meaning, but very inflexible, rules can make it very expensive to do even the most basic of renovations.

I also spoke to a couple of people in a very rural village in Italy and asking about why so many houses were in such disrepair. Turns our the people living there could not afford to repair them in a way that complied with all the regulations about preserving 'historic' buildings. These where largely poorer people who's family had owned the house for generations. They couldn't afford to repair their homes, but they also couldn't move since their houses where in such a state that they where effectively worthless.

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

#180

Post by iudqnolq »

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.…

You don't even need to get into the second order social costs. SF spends about $70,000 per shelter bed per year, or $5,800 per month. Rent in SF is expensive, but not that expensive.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s-f-report-puts-a-1-4...

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