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Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

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Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#611

Post by immibis »

dragonwriter wrote: post #531
cudgy wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Meanwhile, large chunks of cities have relatively affordable, but not as attractive neighborhoods with homes that could be converted to house the homeless for a fraction of what it would cost to build new housing. If they are "relatively affordable, but not as attractive" they are probably largely housing people currently, and not available to house the homeless. If they are "in total blight, with abandoned neighbo…

> and already sheltering squattors

i.e. already providing housing to someone who would otherwise be homeless

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#612

Post by saagarjha »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #459
saagarjha wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…?

The part where you like to go around being annoying and then when people get upset retreating to "my opinion is just as valuable as yours". Which I think is stupid, except this time I'm not even going to engage on that and directly say that I also agree with their position, which means that not only is your opinion dumb it is also in the minority.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#613

Post by nikitaga »

gottorf wrote: post #489
nikitaga wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just saying "speculation" doesn't really paint the picture of what's going on. In 2010-s everyone here blamed foreign speculators hiding in the shadows, but we live in a different, worse, world now. This country's housing and immigration & temp. resident policies are absolutely out of sync, intentionally. In 2021 they've changed the rules to add hundreds of thousands of people overnight, but did not build anywhere cl…

> the next government plans to continue doing it Asking as someone not that familiar with Canadian politics, is this "the next government" as in the Liberal one that would replace Trudeau after his resignation, or the (likely) Conservative one that would be in power after the general election?

The latter. Conservatives have shown no serious interest in reducing immigration. Their politicians get all the same profits from the crisis, plus the votes of socially conservative immigrants on top. Canadian politics is full of weird alliances.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#614

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

worik wrote: post #565
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be precise, "oversupply" here means "supply which has not yet reached the market clearing price". You could theoretically cause San Francisco to have an oversupply of housing if you waved a magic wand and made everyone selling their homes right now double their prices, but they would probably fall back to the natural equilibrium. Or, if they didn't, and those homes actually sold, you could describe the current sit…

> To be precise, "oversupply" here means "supply which has not yet reached the market clearing price". That is true for consumer goods where demand can shift to substitutions easily It is not true for infrastructure goods such as housing. (Housing is infrastructure) There is a measurable need that can be under or over supplied.

That claim is just false. No one needs to live at exactly 123 Acorn Street, Pierre, South Dakota, USA.

They may have good reasons to want to live there, including "My job is here", "My family is here", and "The only doctor in the world who can treat my exceptionally rare illness lives here". But God will not smite them if USPS starts delivering their mail to a different address. They have many options for figuring out a different place to live, either locally in Pierre, or farther away in a different state or continent.

The fact that the supply and demand curves seemingly move slower in the housing market compared to e.g. the electricity or food markets, which are arguably much more basic "infrastructure goods" (you can survive being homeless if you have food - you can't survive living in a mansion with nothing to eat), doesn't mean they stop being subject to the laws of supply and demand. At worst it means "Plan carefully, because if you miss the mark you will lose a lot of money for a long time." At best it means "Sweet - I wonder if I can make these markets more dynamic with a new company?"

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#615

Post by Boogie_Man »

mmooss wrote: post #581
Boogie_Man wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll decide without the slightest moral compunction: If you're addicted to fentanyl and living on the street you're getting involuntarily committed.

But you complain about fictive homeless people attacking you, with or without moral compunction. What will you do with this person after you've committed them? It turns out that forcing people to detox isn't effective. Addiction is a disease with no reliable cure; you can't just give someone a round of antibiotics. But if you think it's possible, demonstrate it to the world: Get yourself addicted, then detox, and you…

I've not complained about anyone, fictional or otherwise.

If your assertion is that getting someone off of drugs in the short term plays absolutely no role in getting someone off drugs in the long term, then I'm not really sure what to say to you. It's my understanding that people primarily get and stay sober out of fear of losing absolutely everything and dying. The trouble with rehabilitating the homeless is that they've effectively lost everything but their lives, and yet remain addicted. In this sort of situation, involuntary commitment would necessarily have to involve serious attempts at community building to show them they can have things in their life again - if they stay clean.

Respectfully, your glibness and the borderline denial of reality makes it difficult to have this conversation because I don't feel as if I'm typing with someone who legitimately wants to improve the situation. Most seriously, your suggestion that I get myself addicted to drugs (which demonstrates that you've completely neglected to consider that you could be typing with a person who has had substance abuse issues - it hasn't even occured to you) indicates that you're not taking this seriously, but rather attempting to appear virtuous by banging on about freedom and being totally unafraid while preventing any possible consideration of solutions to a major humanitarian crisis.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#616

Post by zelphirkalt »

sugarplant wrote: post #288
andriamanitra wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A stable environment is certainly going to dramatically increase the chance of overcoming an addiction. It obviously does not guarantee success but it's a crucial first step in the process. As pointed out in the article the housing first approach is actually saving money in the long run by reducing subsequent costs incurred by social services, so the "everyone else is paying for their addiction" argument does not rea…

do people really believe this claim up front? providing active junkies: 1) completely free units to destroy 2) 24/7 emergency care teams 3) completely free healthcare and mental healthcare 4) no sobriety expectations of any sort 5) no possibility to be kicked out of the program for any reason is going to be cheaper than putting them in jail or an institution? wow sounds almost too good to be true it would be interest…

Do you know how much it costs to put someone in jail, and take care of them there? In Europe.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#617

Post by Ekaros »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #616
sugarplant wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do people really believe this claim up front? providing active junkies: 1) completely free units to destroy 2) 24/7 emergency care teams 3) completely free healthcare and mental healthcare 4) no sobriety expectations of any sort 5) no possibility to be kicked out of the program for any reason is going to be cheaper than putting them in jail or an institution? wow sounds almost too good to be true it would be interest…

Do you know how much it costs to put someone in jail, and take care of them there? In Europe.

For Finland in 2021 one figure is 225€ a day, or 82500€ a year.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#618

Post by bryanlarsen »

throwawayq3423 wrote: post #602
bryanlarsen wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90% of the homeless people in California lived in Californa for over a year before becoming homeless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_California

That can mean any number of things. A lot of people move to LA to "make it" with no plan B, they didn't have a plan B where they came from either. California has 30% of the US homeless population, but 11% of it's total population. It is dramatically disproportional, period. https://shou.senate.ca.gov/sites/shou.senate.ca.gov/files/Ho...

California has the most expensive housing in America. That is the primary reason for its larger homeless population.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#619

Post by jillesvangurp »

skrebbel wrote: post #454
jillesvangurp wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I was told by locals that it was explicitly

My experience with Finnish people is that it can be hard to tell when they are joking and they have a dark sense of humor. Great poker players too.

Re: Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

#620

Post by lifestyleguru »

Symbiote wrote: post #586
lifestyleguru wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long into your life do you accept to share rooms and apartments? > It's not too difficult to rent a room in a shared house/apartment as a single person In Berlin or Munich absolutely not, even shared accommodation have some absurd castings. Some people really smell their advantage and squeeze every drop of humiliation they can.

Indefinitely, if you can't afford to live alone. It's obviously not something you'd want to do, but it's much better than being homeless. I've shared a house with people in their 40s (or more) when I was in my 20s in London. I'm sure they would have preferred their own place, but it was much, much cheaper for them to share.

If someone in their 40s ends up or insist on living in shared accommodation in London, it's probably a hidden message from their own destiny.
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