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Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

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Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#201

Post by andriamanitra »

nostromo wrote: post #169
wesselbindt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The US does spend tens of billions fighting homelessness though. The US is very generous in this regard. The problem is it’s not solvable by building homes. It’s about addiction and mental illness. And because of the US constitution, it’s very difficult to help Americans that do not want to be helped.

The US approach to fighting homelessness is the equivalent of hiring more and more cleaners to mop the floor instead of spending a little bit more upfront to fix the leaky pipes. It's both expensive and ineffective (much like the healthcare system).

> it’s very difficult to help Americans that do not want to be helped

This is true but if you were to offer free housing to 100 homeless people how many of them do you reckon would decline the offer? Many if not most of them could be helped back on their feet if there was political will to do so.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#202

Post by IncreasePosts »

Qwertious wrote: post #197
IncreasePosts wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is not what I'm saying. Notice, I never said we shouldn't do anything. I'm saying reaching the state of "no homelessness" is dependent upon finding something to do with the worst of the homeless. For a tech analogy, imagine you've architected a system that has 99.5% uptime. You might be able to imagine a way to get to 99.9% up time. With enough resources, you might even be able to get to 99.99% uptime. With…

Is anyone here saying we need to reach literally 0% homelessness? Reducing current numbers by 99% would be amazing.

Well, people have used the phrase "end homelessness", which I take to mean no homeless.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#203

Post by cousin_it »

carlosjobim wrote: post #183
cousin_it wrote: post #106

I think governments should offer free housing to everyone who asks, in their city of choice. "But why should taxpayers pay for that? It's expensive!" Yes, it would be very expensive. But you know what's even more expensive? The sum of everybody's lowered wages, bad bosses, fear for the future, fear of having kids and so on, due to the threat of homelessness. Yes, building housing is expensive, but the removal of fear…

What you're proposing is classical Soviet communism. Particularly Khrushchev era communism. Much have been said and written about it, if you're interested.

What nonsense. Did you hear me proposing nationalizing all industry? Having a state ideology? Closing the borders? Removing freedom of speech? No, what I proposed was giving people free housing. Another thing I'd propose is giving people free healthcare. Both these things are good ideas. Mentioning the USSR doesn't make them bad ideas.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#204

Post by bluefirebrand »

vkou wrote: post #188
Scoundreller wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would it be possible to fix the problem at the expense of the lower working class? Not sure if you intended to phrase your question as you did, but if you give cash to the unhoused to rent housing, that takes supply from the bottom of the rental market if you don’t build any more. Builders tend to build for those that can afford to pay and don’t target the bottom of the market. Most stock of low-cost housing is…

I mean, yes, it doesn't matter how you distribute money, when there are 9 beds in town, and 10 people, someone's going to be sleeping rough.

This is obviously true, but misses the point

Even if there are 10 beds and 10 people, if 9 people can afford to pay 2000 for their beds, and that last one can only afford 500, that last one is still going homeless

Because the person selling the last bed is going to want around 2000 for it, just like the other 9 are paying

Edit: and no, telling them they have to give up that bed for 500 is not a real option

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#205

Post by thfuran »

mmooss wrote: post #149
thfuran wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture changes, but it's very hard to deliberately effect specific changes.

Not really. People deliberately persuade the public of things all the time. Some persuade them of absolutely false, awful things with regularity.

When you say "things", I assume you don't mean "to change deeply held values and cultural traditions".

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#206

Post by tehjoker »

andrewla wrote: post #92

Without digging too deep into the nature of the statistics they use, I'm a little skeptical of this. The transition to using the word "homeless" has resulted in transforming something we can't easily measure -- "drug addicted or mentally ill people being a public menace" -- into something that we can measure -- "people without a good living arrangement". Sure, the latter is important in a lot of ways too. And there h…

People are on the street because they don't have homes. If they had homes, they would be less depressed, less drug addicted, and less destitute and less likely to cause public problems. So just give them homes.

A major upside: if you lose your job, you won't be at risk of becoming homeless! it would allow you to take a much stronger negotiating position with your boss. It would allow you to take a much stronger position with your landlord regarding rent increases too.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#207

Post by bluefirebrand »

cousin_it wrote: post #199
somethoughts wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the challenge is that some will use it as a jumping of point to change their lives and some will use it to stick to their poor lifestyle habits and expect the provider of the housing to provide free house cleaning, free maintenance and free meals and in exchange be a community nuisance. The latter ruins it for the former. As a taxpayer, I would be willing to provide free housing in a lower cost of living area…

I think it's still much better for a country to have a bunch of untidy annoying people housed for free, than to have the same bunch of untidy annoying people live on the street and serve as a constant reminder to everyone: "keep working and don't annoy the boss or you could be homeless too".

They will still be on the street most of the time though

The street is where they panhandle for money and get their drugs

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#208

Post by barbazoo »

ipaddr wrote: post #147
barbazoo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's your assumption. Instead, mine is that it would require some kind of wealth transfer to pay for the social services.

Paying for the social services is possible. The difficult issue is some people don't want to go to a homeless shelter because they want to maintain a level of freedom while others fear they will be robbed/raped at the shelter. Do you force them inside?

> The difficult issue is some people don't want to go to a homeless shelter because they want to maintain a level of freedom while others fear they will be robbed/raped at the shelter.

A bit of a strawman, social service doesn't have to mean homeless shelter, so no, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. Problem is in many places at least where I live, there just isn't enough money to serve all the people that need the various levels of help.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#209

Post by dsajames »

m0llusk wrote: post #177
annzabelle wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Northern Europe has a much more robust system of using Long Acting Injectable Antipsychotics (under court order if nessecary) and various group home options or Assertive Community Treatment teams that have nurses visit patients daily. They are also quicker to use lithium and clozapine when indicated. They also do much longer hospital stays when needed than our revolving door policies here. Al…

Psychiatry has some of the worst reproducability of any science. People who are forced to live on the streets without good access to services begin to exhibit symptoms of psychosis within one to two days and lose those symptoms after a similar duration of one or two days with housing. In Europe such a policy might make sense, but in America where being dumped on the street is rather common the situation is different.…

I can see this. I knew someone who was homeless for a time.

I asked her where she slept. She said "you don't sleep". You don't even have to run an experiment to know that sleep deprivation, even in your own home, causes psychosis. Now add the shock of being exposed to filth for the first time, poor climate control (homeless don't walk around with multiple layers of Patagonia and a nice backpack to stash them in as it warms up), the very real threat of sexual or physical assault, the shocking awareness that you are now "one of them" and know that a sizable percentage of your acquaintances would immediately distance themselves from you if they knew your plight. We're not even talking about food and vitamin quality here.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#210

Post by Qwertious »

JamesLeonis wrote: post #37
ipaddr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US could end homelessness but would need to stop immigration and change the constitution which could force people in shelter. Not sure it's the outcome we all want.

There are 10 million empty homes [0] and ~700,000 homeless. No matter how you slice those numbers you still have more empty housing stock than homeless right now. [0]: https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf (page 4)

There could be a ghost town with 50 million homes in the middle of the desert, but if there are no grocery stores or jobs there then homeless people can't move there.

The raw number of empty houses is irrelevant. Especially when some of those houses are temporarily uninhabitable, e.g. houses being renovated, or houses in LA right now near the wildfires.

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