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Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

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251–260 of 660 posts

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#251
post #250

My problem is this: Being homeless is not inherently wrong. But I feel when a society makes camping on common ground a crime - like native Americans did, it owes it to them to a) give them land to camp on or b) give them housing. It shouldn’t be a crime to sleep, ever. It horrifies me that the “conservative” Supreme Court could deny the most fundamental right to existence, literally jailing people for sleeping.

It's not going to stay common ground for very long if anyone can just set up camp there and claim it for themselves.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, or just unlucky. The goal of my proposal is not to create equality, but to establish a minimum below which people cannot fall.

Who gets to determine the minimum threshold? And how will they enforce it?

Enter now a bureaucracy who will ask the right questions, involve all the stakeholders, foster an environment of trust and cooperation, coordinate across organizations, proactively address any issues, create a people-first strategy, etc... Meanwhile nothing gets built....

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#253
post #192
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming others share your perspective and understanding. > 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". > the former is the actual problem that we care about The word homeless is pretty old, not someth…

> I spend a lot of time in cities and know others who do too. None feel menaced by people who are unhoused - why would that be menacing? - or high. High people generally don't know you are there, and are easily avoided. I've had zero problems; I don't know of anyone else who has This is completely detached from reality. I find it hard to believe you are being truthful unless you're doing some sort of gotcha where you…

> This is completely detached from reality.

what's completely detached from reality is that the problem is so bad in (US) cities like NYC that it seems inconceivable that it isn't a universal truth that cities just have an indigent population that regularly threatens and sometimes follows through on threats of violence to passersby.

How did we let the problem get this bad‽

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#254

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…

I'd like to live in Honolulu.

Up to a week ago I wanted to live in Palisades :)

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#255
post #246
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. >…

Edit - ok, I see the mistake. Thanks. "Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214" If by detention you mean incarceration, that is still shy of half of the US rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...

They're referring to psychiatric civil commitment

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#256
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the question you’re asking here? I’m Finnish and I have a close family member with a severe mental illness, so I should be reasonably well positioned to answer your question. But it doesn’t make any sense to me. How does any of this relate to homelessness? To get people off the streets, you give them a place to live. Then you can start solving their other problems. It’s common sense.

In some US popular culture “drug addict” is code for “weak or immoral person.” There’s very little empathy or understanding of people who are much less fortunate; there’s plenty of evidence in this thread. This misguided moral compass outweighs even sensible practices like harm reduction. People would rather see junkies die on the street of hepatitis than give them free housing and needles. It satisfies some primal n…

[flagged]

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#257
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.

What's funny is that I would bet money that immigrants to Canada have a higher employment rate than Canadian citizens as a whole.

I say that as a member of both groups.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#258
post #246
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. >…

Edit - ok, I see the mistake. Thanks. "Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214" If by detention you mean incarceration, that is still shy of half of the US rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...

Incarceration and detention are totally different things. Incarceration is generally for things that have already happened. Detention is for things that might happen in the future. A convicted criminal is incarcerated. A dangerous patient is detained to prevent them hurting themselves or others going forwards.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#259

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…

While I'm not homeless, the existence of USB(powerbank) heated clothes have been a very comfy discovery of mine recently. A bit fiddly at times sure but having hours of comfy warmth available at the press of a button is worth it. I've wondered if this is something adopted by the homeless already? and if not, look into it. You still need proper insulating layers on top of the heating ones, and many of the cheapest chi…

Where I went to college there was a local homeless guy who was friendly and well known enough that the coffee shops wouldn't bother him if he came in and plugged in his electric blanket to warm up.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#260
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming others share your perspective and understanding. > 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". > the former is the actual problem that we care about The word homeless is pretty old, not someth…

> I spend a lot of time in cities and know others who do too. None feel menaced by people who are unhoused - why would that be menacing? - or high. High people generally don't know you are there, and are easily avoided. I've had zero problems; I don't know of anyone else who has. "Nothing ever happens" says person nothing happened to. Meanwhile, these are just some examples that made the news: * https://www.bbc.co.uk…

Linking to incidents in cities in the US, and the 51st and 52nd state, aren't representative of cities across the world.

Maybe """ "Nothing ever happens" says person nothing happened to.""" is honestly telling the truth that they don't concieve of anything happening to them because they live outside of this insane bubble we're in that it's just accepted for cities to just have a violent homeless population that "we can't do anything about". Maybe we're the idiots in this situation.

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