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Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

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Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a reason why you have lower homeless population in the temperate zone than in the tropical zone of the world.

Temperate usually means “mild”, or easily survivable. If using the technical term, I think you might mean “Continental climate”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperate_climate

Nope. I used the right term. I said temperate zone not climate.

From the very Wikipedia article you shared:

> The north temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Cancer (approximately 23.5° north latitude) to the Arctic Circle (approximately 66.5° north latitude). The south temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Capricorn (approximately 23.5° south latitude) to the Antarctic Circle (at approximately 66.5° south latitude).[4][5]

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#592

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.

Canada is full of homeless Indians. There’s probably a few hundred thousand if you also count people with inadequate housing like students that share bedrooms in 10 person houses

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, that’s not a genocide, if that’s what they think it is they should look the definition.

We could use the Israeli solution and launch a rocket at every encampment to weed out the few violent people inside. Call it whatever you want. Would that be a good solution?

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#594
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you end homelessness, when some percent of homeless people will, if you give them a place to stay, smoke meth all day and make their apartment and nearby apartments health hazards? Many drug addicts don't want to be addicted, and would try to go through treatment if provided. But some are inveterate, and don't want to quit. What do you do with them?

“[…] if you give them a place to stay, smoke meth all day and make their apartment and nearby apartments health hazards” You skipped a step or two in there, but I will note that if you had real health care, the homeless adhd and such would be on their vyvanse prescriptions rather than self-medicating with meth.

We have free healthcare in Canada but the homeless will burn down their free housing and run away with all the copper. What can we do about people like that?

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#595
post #156
post #125

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US and Europe have different reasone for homelessnes. Give free houses in US and next day you will have +400mln people from South America. In EU (I can speak for Poland) most homeless have alcohol and violence problems - people removed from homes for domestic violence by court (divorce). You must be quite bad person if no one takes care of you, in a country with a) strong family tights and b) many people owning a hom…

> Give free houses in US and next day you will have +400mln people from South America. I don't know that at all. People in public housing that I know and see are not especially from South America.

Good bait

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The abolishments actually fundamentally changed Minneapolis: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/... Most of the new units are in massive multi-apartment buildings. And these buildings have a huge disproportionate impact on the quality of life. It's now going to be sliding into shittier and shittier conditions. More crime, more congestion, higher housing prices.

You live near one of these developments? Your reaction may be correct, but my experience has been that the density has brought amenities. A brewery, a cafe, and a good restaurant moved into vacant/underutilized spaces. My street hasn’t been had issues with long-term parkers. Crime’s no issue. IDK. My experience doesn’t align with your certainty.

I actually do live in a neighborhood affected by densification, although not in Minneapolis. The "amenities" got worse, a couple of local small stores were demolished and replaced with apartment buildings. A couple of these apartment buildings are "low barrier housing", meaning that they are given to junkies. So the property crime in the area skyrocketed (not helped by newly opened transit), and we don't have a single 24-hour pharmacy in the area anymore.

The street parking is now oversubscribed, so my friends often have to circle around the area for quite a while to find a spot when they visit me.

These changes actually made me look into the question of density. Before that first-hand experience, I used to be a pro-urbanist victim of propaganda. And yes, I lived in Europe and I got my driving license when I was about 30.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#597
There is no solution because most chronically homeless prefer that lifestyle. I know I would if I was homeless. Living in a tent, hanging out with friends, and drinking beer in the park. In good weather and with access to food it’s not so bad.

Remember that not everyone has good opportunities. If my other choice was working a dehumanizing job to afford a tiny room with several roommates and no leftover money.. can’t really blame them for not wanting help.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those abolishments are way less intense than you're thinking. There's still a ton of restrictions that make building even the triplexes that they technically legalized actually get built. Things like floor/area ratios and setbacks, which make building dwellings that people want difficult. https://streets.mn/2023/10/24/mapping-minneapolis-duplexes-a...

The abolishments actually fundamentally changed Minneapolis: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/... Most of the new units are in massive multi-apartment buildings. And these buildings have a huge disproportionate impact on the quality of life. It's now going to be sliding into shittier and shittier conditions. More crime, more congestion, higher housing prices.

I don't think you read and understood the article you just linked. That is talking about a very broad set of reforms, not the single family home zoning abolishment.

> higher housing prices

Have you ever heard of a market?

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, your link is focused on zoning changes, specifically how they are insufficient to prompt addition supply to be built. From your linked blog post: > Freemark finds extremely mixed and uncertain evidence for the effects of upzoning, and one of several reasons he identifies is that the link between upzoning and actual housing production is tenuous. In other words, “Are they allowed to build it?” is a different…

> Firstly, your link is focused on zoning changes, specifically how they are insufficient to prompt addition supply to be built. Yeah. The misery pushers (urbanists) can't admit outright that their ideology is leading to disaster, can they? So they now need not only zoning restrictions lifted, but the state must also build housing and give it out to "deserving" people for cheap. > Secondly, building more suburbs and…

You keep referring to people who like cities that function as cities as "misery pushers" and then in the same breath doing as much as you can to create an association between increased density and all these hypothetical negative possibilities. Likewise it just seems as though you've developed some level of prejudice based on the negative experience you're contending with in your neighborhood, and then extrapolating that quite severely, because you think you've been lied to. It's tricky to reconcile how if you were inclined to be optimistic about the prospect of urbanism to begin with, you'd be so intensely and easily convinced otherwise, or surprised that the creation of an arbitrary higher density building didn't turn your low density town into European capital city overnight. Like how does it happen that you lived in no specific place in Europe for example, then to where you are now, and one thing gets built which convinces you that actually every city in Europe is and has always been wrong.

Your chart shows two lines that seem to represent sales of something over time in nearby cities, which may or may not be relevant, but are at most a narrow slice of what one would need to look at in order to understand what's going on over in Minneapolis if anything.

You then create a strawman who thinks the removal of zoning restrictions will automatically lead to a utopia in which we have no other human problems or economic systems to contend with, even going so far as to dismiss someone on the basis of a lacking argument against a claim that nobody made.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You live near one of these developments? Your reaction may be correct, but my experience has been that the density has brought amenities. A brewery, a cafe, and a good restaurant moved into vacant/underutilized spaces. My street hasn’t been had issues with long-term parkers. Crime’s no issue. IDK. My experience doesn’t align with your certainty.

I actually do live in a neighborhood affected by densification, although not in Minneapolis. The "amenities" got worse, a couple of local small stores were demolished and replaced with apartment buildings. A couple of these apartment buildings are "low barrier housing", meaning that they are given to junkies. So the property crime in the area skyrocketed (not helped by newly opened transit), and we don't have a singl…

That’s unfortunate. Maybe it can be done well or be done poorly. From my experience as a homeowner in Minneapolis, the dense housing has been net neutral/positive.
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