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Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

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Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#231

Post by timewizard »

verteu wrote: post #220

They also do a lot of compulsory psychiatric detention: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychiatric-bulletin... > Finnish mental health legislation takes a medical approach to compulsory measures, emphasising the need for treatment of psychiatric patients over civil liberties concerns... Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214 compared with 93 in the UK and 11 in Italy. >…

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" does not automatically mean "good, moral, and upstanding lifestyle."

To the extent that people have a natural right to exist and society does not I think it should be contingent on administrators to prove the standard they're applying is actually reasonable and non discriminatory.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#232

Post by mrkstu »

dyauspitr wrote: post #218
nineplay wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever seen a homeless Indian in India? I would assume not, since evidently Indians have intact familial cultures that churn out good citizens.

Yes I have seen plenty of homeless people in India.

Yep, I'm sure there are plenty of 2nd/3rd generation homeless ethnic Indians in the US. Someone with the will and drive to cross 1/2 the globe and get through the visa gauntlet is highly unlikely to end up homeless due to addiction or mental health, since those have likely been weeded out in the process, but the same mentalities that entrap many American's will likely fall on their descendants.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#233

Post by ricksunny »

thePhytochemist wrote: post #50

This issue is very relevant for me since I have been homeless since May. It's been a bad run of being a target of criminal activity, unemployment and just running out of money during my job search. I cope with a mix of volunteering, overpriced housing (think $1200/month for a room in a rural area before I ran out of money for that), catsitting, house-sitting, staying with family and sleeping in my ancient car. Althou…

I look after a citizen science-driven phytochemistry research activity and would be interested to understand more about your background. My email is in my HN user page.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#234

Post by more_corn »

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…

The thing you claim to care about (drug addicted or mentally ill people being a public menace) is wildly easier to combat when the people in question have a stable living situation.

The housing first initiative in Salt Lake City provides ample evidence that if people have a stable living situation it is way easier to get them to take their medication, get into rehab, keep them out of dangerous situations. It’s actually more cost effective in the long term to house the chronically homeless instead of kicking the can down the road.

If you actually care about what you claim to care about you should be supporting housing first.

That means 1) get people housed with minimal red tape and basically no conditions 2) treat mental health and drug addiction

The evidence is clear that it works and that it is more cost effective than dealing with the fallout when homeless people unravel.

Unfortunately politicians who had preconceived notions about this topic ignored the evidence and revoked funding for the program. Your statement that it is impossible to treat or cure mental illness and drug addiction (which the evidence does not support) places you in that camp. You, my friend are the worst part of the problem. Because the evidence exists to disprove your stance, but you hold a strong opinion without having bothered to check the science.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#235

Post by mrkstu »

mmooss wrote: post #150
Aunche wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geopolitical commentary aside, the city of San Francisco has spent billions of dollars on homelessness and it has only gotten worse. I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes to house people less fortunate than me, but I expect the government to get their money's worth. If I wouldn't want to spend a million on a shoebox, then the city shouldn't either.

What is the point? Not everything has worked, so do nothing? If we read the OP, we can find out about some things that have worked.

The point is that it isn't a money problem, so the proposed solution of diverting money is off point to begin with.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#236

Post by 0xDEADFED5 »

Xortl wrote: post #145
wesselbindt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever considered that it may be the other way around? That the horrors of living on the street (and "horrors" is an appropriate term here, you are fighting for survival every day; it is beyond the realm of comprehension of the housed) might be causing the mental illness and drug use, rather than the other way around? If I want to get a homeless person off of drugs, it sure as crisps is not going to happen unt…

I'm happy to read evidence I'm wrong (I want to be wrong - it would make me much more optimistic about a fix), but my own life and everything I've read suggests the opposite - once someone develops a serious drug or alcohol addiction it leads to them destroying everything good in their lives and inevitably they either sober up or end up homeless. Nearly all of the people who stay homeless in the long term have some s…

Most addicts end up recovering

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#237

Post by lostlogin »

Qwertious wrote: post #191
peab wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The housing situation in Canada is insane and is so obviously due to not building enough housing and bringing too many people into the country via immigration. The fact that it costs 1200$/month for a room in a rural area is incredibly damning. I went to college in Ottawa, and now I live in Austin Texas. It's similar in size, although Austin has been growing more lately. Curiously, they are also both capitols, colleg…

>and bringing too many people into the country via immigration. In a functioning economy, more immigration will just result in more housing being built , as long as the immigrants are working. Especially since the cost of housing construction is largely the cost of labor. Immigration is a distraction from the core inability to build more housing.

The continual drive for growth is a problem though. By definition it isn’t sustainable, yet we keep adding, consuming, growing.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#238

Post by timewizard »

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…

> 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.

I doubt your supposition. Once you create free housing you reduce your tax base. You are creating a positive feedback loop of costs, lost revenue, leading to more costs, leading to more lost revenue... and so on.

You've also not explored alternative means of solving those other problems on a more direct level or have any information as to what that might cost. You could just as well increase direct funding for small businesses and approach anti monopoly law with a renewed vigor.

To me it's putting a bandaid on your eye when you've cut your finger. So very nearly the right idea it's a little painful.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#239

Post by dragonwriter »

dyauspitr wrote: post #70
nostromo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how every westerner visits Japan and comes home thinking we can "solve crime" or "solve homelessness" or "have clean subway stations." Japan's culture is why those things are the way they are. It's not due to funding. It's because people raise their children differently than we do in the west. The family's obligations are also greater. And, yes, there are homeless people in Japan. But they typically are in…

It’s definitely cultural. I’ve been to every major city in the US and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a homeless Indian. Some groups have broken familial cultures that does not churn out good citizens. Did the US in the past play a major role in breaking down those groups and surrounding them with abject poverty that makes it hard to escape from? Absolutely.

> It’s definitely cultural. I’ve been to every major city in the US and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a homeless Indian.

Why might it be rare to see a homeless member of a group whose members make up less than 2% of the population in the US to start with and are largely recent immigrants (15% immigrating within the last 5 years!), often under work-based visa programs targeting highly-skilled workers that are well paid?

Could it be cultural superiority of the cultures from which they are drawn? Could it be some other thing that makes them rare among the US homeless?

Hard to tell, I'm sure.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#240

Post by lostlogin »

teractiveodular wrote: post #178
enaaem wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People hate om commie blocks but it was an excellent solution to mass produce affordable housing in war torn Europe. The free market is full of cheap mass produced stuff. Why can't housing be mass produced? Why are there not more economic options? It's almost always restrictive regulations that stops these solutions from happening.

Good luck getting commie blocks pushed through planning approvals today. NIMBYs in general are violently against any kind of public housing.

> NIMBYs in general are violently against any kind of public housing.

It’s more complicated than that. I’m massively pro public housing. I hate living next to it.

A poorly managed emergency housing facility is just a shit show. Violence, noise, rubbish, human and animal abuse, property damage, police attendance, debt collectors, smell, rodents, animal attacks, threats, overgrown plants etc, all within the last year, at my neighbouring house. If it was ever managed properly, people might view it differently. Managing it costs money, and then people oppose the cost when it doesn’t come with more housing.

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