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Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

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Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#451

Post by summeroflove20 »

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.

"as long as the immigrants are working"

And their family members, and the money they work for stays in-country and is not sent overseas.

Not commenting on your stance of the costs of construction, that's ridiculous to be left there on its own.

Get more out, to get a reality check.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#452

Post by magnetowasright »

dsajames wrote: post #209
m0llusk wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is my experience too. Of course being sleep deprived as a result of having a ...tenuous relationship to safety, shall we say, fucks with a person. Understatement of the century lol

It's popped up in the news (and in the comments here too) a bunch about how parts of the US's prescribed 'solutions' to this is to put people on antipsychotic medications. One big effect is that these medications sedate. If someone has passed out and has an inability to be roused and can hardly function if roused is an insane risk for homeless people. People aren't getting no sleep for funsies. Antipsychotics being used to chemically restrain the inconvenient is just abhorrent. Making them considerably less safe as a result is just inexcusable.

Not to mention the extrapyramidal side effects of antipsychotics that compound chronic health problems like metabolic syndrome. I'm sure that the nurse who's hardest science class was in high school who's now allowed a prescription pad after an only only diploma mill 'masters' is prescribing complex medications appropriately and managing overall health impacts of such meds when even experienced psychiatrists fuck it up (but NPs are a rant for another time.).

Having been homeless and on antipsychotic medications (thankfully not at the same time) it's just nuts to me that it's even considered a possible solution to homeless people having mental health issues (arising from circumstance or not) or being 'nuisances' is to just sedate them and leave them for dead.

Disclaimer: Antipsychotics are a tool and they can greatly impact a person's life in positive ways. Also in negative ways. They're also not just used for psychosis. I just wanted to clarify I think there's nuances in my anti antipsychotic rant here lol

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#453

Post by lifestyleguru »

summeroflove20 wrote: post #450
lifestyleguru wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is absolutely the case also in Europe. In Berlin or Munich you're not going to rent anything as a single person. In Warsaw or Prague you'll not afford to rent anything on one local income (assuming you even have a job there currently).

You sure about this? Not every single person works in service, hospitality or blue-collar jobs.

> Not every single person works in service, hospitality or blue-collar jobs.

What do mean, that other single professionals will better succeed renting in Berlin or Munich, or afford renting in Warsaw or Prague? My experience is that even less so.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#454

Post by skrebbel »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #426
skrebbel wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's -20 during the night you can either lock people up or collect their corpses in the morning. Or put floor heating under the streets like they did in Jyväskylä!

I think that's more about keeping them ice free. There's a shopping street in Helsinki where they did that, I think. Anyway, sleeping rough in Jyväskylä sounds like it would be tough. Although you might have enough material (snow) to try to make an iglo. Some people do that for fun even. Of course technically if you make an iglo your home are you still homeless?

I was told by locals that it was explicitly to keep homeless people from dying. A few streets in the center were heated. Like, not warm in any way, but it was kinda weird to walk into the center and suddenly all the snow was gone. Just warm enough for it all to thaw.

Note, this was 20 years ago, maybe it all changed, either the system or the reasons. I can imagine that if you have a zero homeless strategy, it's weird to say that the street heating is for the homeless.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#455

Post by amanaplanacanal »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #278
wesselbindt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What genocide? I'm not aware of genocide that is currently occurring that the US is funding. The US is not bombing children. How would just giving people houses solve homelessness? Do you know what happens to places that house homeless people? How long would this solve the problem for these people? This just seems like anti-Americanism with no quantitative grounding.

They are likely talking about aid to Israel, which then uses it to buy American weapons.

Probably a bigger horror was 20 years ago when the US invaded Iraq, leading to something like half a million dead.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#456

Post by amanaplanacanal »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #202
Qwertious wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People have used the phrase "end poverty" for decades, and we still spend money on it even if we didn't get to 0%.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#457

Post by noisy_boy »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #429
cudgy wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not implying that immigration is the only reason for higher housing prices. My opinion is that 0% interest rates and loose credit are the primary reason. However, simple supply/demand would suggest that immigration AND 0% interest rates both affect demand quickly while supply requires securing land, building homes and getting approval to build homes takes significant time. Migrations are happening at a faster rat…

On HN and on tech twitter I often see this statement: “the reason rents are high is because we don’t build enough houses.” But I don’t think that’s really true, I think that’s very simplistic. The missing observation is that housing has become an asset class in a way it wasn’t in the past. Large numbers of people purchase houses to rent seek as landlords, and the only limit to the demand for rent seeking is the abili…

Then why doesn't the government put limits on the no. of houses/flats a canadian family can buy? Allowing wealthy individuals to keep buying housing for rent-seeking isn't going to help the problem. Beyond the one for staying, how many more should they be able to own, if any?

From the houseowners' perspective, if they can only own one that they stay in, what alternatives the government needs to structure to balance the restriction, assuming the restriction is put in place? Should everyone put their savings in stock market etc and be subject to losses due to it? Because they too need a stable and inflation pegged income for their retirement.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#458

Post by ANewFormation »

cudgy wrote: post #395
wat10000 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A business center doesn't have to be expensive. That’s made to happen because housing isn’t allowed to be built in sufficient quantity, not a necessary consequence of success.

And yet most large cities have sections of it that are in total blight with abandoned homes, with windows blown out or plywood covering access holes to prevent intruders. Much of the problem is that the bourgeois class wants to live in the popular neighborhood, bidding up rents and values in isolated sections of large cities. Meanwhile, large chunks of cities have relatively affordable, but not as attractive neighbor…

I don't think it's people just wanting to live in 'popular' neighborhoods, but safe neighborhoods. In the places you're describing you don't go out after dark, crime is common, and you also get to enjoy things like SUVs slowly cruising around at 1am with sound systems more fit for a stadium than a car.

In places, like most countries in Asia, where crime rates are vastly lower, you'll see far greater levels of socioeconomic mixing with defacto mansions near rather modest houses. The same is also true to some degree in rural areas in the states, where you'll see a trailer on a couple of acres with a truck husk or two in the front yard right beside a house that you'd be more inclined to call an 'estate.'

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#459

Post by MichaelZuo »

saagarjha wrote: post #394
MichaelZuo wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does your opinion matter more than anyone else’s opinion here? Even if you believe my previous questions were too opinionated, responding with even more can only be detrimental, and it is not going to lead anywhere productive. For example, try making a substantive argument as to how a credible enforcement system would come into existence. Otherwise the default assumption is that it will not turn out any better th…

I'll add a second opinion to that. Still feeling smug about it?

Smug about an argument I haven’t seen? What do you believe is the actual argument…?

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#460

Post by skirge »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #438
skirge wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are many organisations and individuals who will help you, if you are sober and non-violent, actually everyone will like cheap workforce - I know few cases like that, someone taken from street to farm or similar.

Neither what you mention is working in reality, sorry. Cheap workforce? Yeah you will be exploited physically, and paid something or rather nothing. Social benefits? These are usurped by various professional groups and institutions are plagued with nepotism. Poland delegated its homelessness to Germany and Netherlands while it's pretending to be a state with 5% unemployment and without housing crisis. Your attitude i…

1 house built by grandfather, surrounded by 4 empty houses. No housing crisis, only people looking for something better they already have, preferably free money.
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