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Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

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Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#151

Post by TeMPOraL »

ekianjo wrote: post #128
tfourb wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all the same in Germany, but even as a property owner, I see some justification for effectively legalizing squatting in unused buildings. It would create some incentive for property owners to invest and rent out buildings, or otherwise sell them cheaply. Ideally this would be formalized and matched with a proper framework, i.e. municipalities can easily buy unused properties at a nominal cost, property owners…

> It would create some incentive for property owners to invest and rent out buildings, or otherwise sell them cheaply. Property is property, you should be free to do what you want with them. Otherwise it's not property. It's like saying "you have a car, you need to use it everyday, otherwise we can justify people borrowing your car when they need one". Also, rent controls, aren't they a thing in some parts of Germany…

> Property is property, you should be free to do what you want with them. Otherwise it's not property. It's like saying "you have a car, you need to use it everyday, otherwise we can justify people borrowing your car when they need one".

Property laws aren't law of physics. The natural state is, you own what you can keep. If I come to you, and bash your head in, and take your all possessions - well, it's mine now, as you weren't able to keep any of it (or your life).

A rule-based society is what lets you cry foul when someone "infringes" on your "property rights", and for that to mean anything. A civilization is what lets you forget, day to day, that all the deeds and leases and contracts are just thin abstractions, mutual self-delusions keeping the knives sheathed and the guns holstered. But we're not a post-scarcity civilization yet.

Happy society giveth, an unhappy society taketh away. If you're at the point that over half of your society is worried about keeping roof over their heads, a substantial chunk of it haven't one, and a noticeable part of that group is happy to break in to temporary empty housing - don't turn your back on your society, lest property again stops meaning anything, and your own life may be forfeit too.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#152

Post by dazc »

redeeman wrote: post #143
midoridensha wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In western Europe, yes. In America, no.

you do not have to be happy with something to not want to personally be responsibility. and to everyone here who thinks otherwise. there are millions of malnutritioned people, including children, in many parts of the world. And i put fourth that you are happy they starve and get sick and die. After all, you arent spending all your money and effort trying to fix it? is it not your problem? I would prefer that nobody i…

It is your responsibility, which is part of the reason why you pay taxes in the first place. The fact that so much of your money is misappropriated is another story though.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#153

Post by ricardobayes »

tfourb wrote: post #146
ekianjo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would create some incentive for property owners to invest and rent out buildings, or otherwise sell them cheaply. Property is property, you should be free to do what you want with them. Otherwise it's not property. It's like saying "you have a car, you need to use it everyday, otherwise we can justify people borrowing your car when they need one". Also, rent controls, aren't they a thing in some parts of Germany…

That is a very extreme view of property that is not shared by vast sections of global society. The German constitution has a very explicit article that states "Property obligates. Its use should simultaneously contribute to the wellbeing of the general public" (my translation) for example. Similarly, EU jurisprudence has confirmed that laws and regulations can limit the absolute control over individual property, if t…

Spain just did a very strict rent control, in "high stress" areas rent can't be raised more than 3% yearly. And if someone is in demonstrable financial distress, the rental contract is automatically protected for a year.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#154

Post by johanneskanybal »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #19

I lived in Finland for a while. Being homeless in that country is pretty hard core in the winter. Which is a reason that sheltering people there is not a nice to have; you either shelter them or you collect their dead bodies in the morning. It's that simple. Places like Helsinki never had a large community of homeless people to begin with (natural selection). But it has plenty of social issues of course. Alcoholism i…

There's a really fun section in the amazing Norwegian comedy/drama "Dag". The premise is that you can't both have a good and fair society and good weather because the need to take care of everyone isn't serious enough if you have good weather.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#155

Post by tfourb »

silisili wrote: post #136
tfourb wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who is gaining anything if the "drugged out, violent, no desire to improve" folks are living on the street instead of some government provided (or paid for) permanent housing? The point of the Finnish project and similar approaches in other countries is to first get people off the street, because it is much easier and cheaper to resolve any other issues within the context of a permanent home. Yes, some of the ben…

Perhaps we are converging on a compromise. I'm completely OK housing them, as long as they are housed physically separately from the others.

Usually, these programs achieve the best results if people are actually integrated into "normal" neighborhoods and not clustered with other people with pre-existing problems. But of course this should depend on a social and psychological assessment. People with mental issues (under which I would count violence as well) should absolutely receive different and more attention and special arrangements.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#156

Post by exDM69 »

eesmith wrote: post #138
exDM69 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not very accurate depiction. The tent camps that were common 15 years ago were victims of human trafficking by southern European gangs. They were predominantly from a certain ethnic group from two southern European countries. They are moved to other countries when the weather gets cold and come back in the spring. Street homelessness was not common before the housing first doctrine, there were shelters. Housi…

bboygravity's proposition was that Finland doesn't have long-term homeless people because the harsh winter kills them off. This is clearly not so, because the source I gave shows long-term homeless people in Finland, who survived winter using "tent villages and huts". That over a quarter of them were immigrants [1] does not change the fact that they existed, or that almost 75% were not immigrants [2]. > Street homele…

There aren't that many homeless killed by the harsh winter any more (or in decades). There were in the 1950s.

> This is clearly not so, because the source I gave shows long-term homeless people in Finland, who survived winter using "tent villages and huts".

The source you gave is an Australian magazine, and what was said in it was not accurate.

There were indeed "tent villages and huts" during that time, but they were 1) there only in the summer 2) predominantly transient people that were a part of a human trafficking scheme from southern Europe.

I do remember these tent villages as there were two near where I lived at that time.

Tent camping is not legal in city areas and they were effectively evicted. There are some transient people still living in allowed camping areas during the summer, but mostly the transient people are now housed somewhere by the people trafficking them.

During the late 20th century there were a few homeless villages built in shacks in urban wastelands (near the airport and close to garbage dump sites) but they were of a more permanent nature.

Winter in Finland is not survivable in a tent without constant heating.

The shacks were built from waste materials and had rudimentary insulation and heating. They were built on waste sites where fuel (wood and garbage) is readily available. The most "famous" site is Simosentie, Vantaa, next to the airport (remains of the "houses" are still there). These shack villages had mostly disappeared by the early 2000s.

The homeless of the 1950s were predominantly war-torn men with mental and addiction problems. Due to their service to their country a decade earlier, Finns adopted an understanding and forgiving attitude to homelessness which is to some degree still present to this date.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#157

Post by eesmith »

exDM69 wrote: post #156
eesmith wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bboygravity's proposition was that Finland doesn't have long-term homeless people because the harsh winter kills them off. This is clearly not so, because the source I gave shows long-term homeless people in Finland, who survived winter using "tent villages and huts". That over a quarter of them were immigrants [1] does not change the fact that they existed, or that almost 75% were not immigrants [2]. > Street homele…

There aren't that many homeless killed by the harsh winter any more (or in decades). There were in the 1950s. > This is clearly not so, because the source I gave shows long-term homeless people in Finland, who survived winter using "tent villages and huts". The source you gave is an Australian magazine, and what was said in it was not accurate. There were indeed "tent villages and huts" during that time, but they wer…

> but they were 1) there only in the summer 2) predominantly transient people that were a part of a human trafficking scheme from southern Europe.

Thank you for the correction.

That doesn't change the fact there were still long-term homeless people, contrary to bboygravity's proposition " If you're literally homeless in Finland you would die during winter season? Could that be a contributing factor to the "success"?'

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#158

Post by TeMPOraL »

redeeman wrote: post #142
ekianjo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would create some incentive for property owners to invest and rent out buildings, or otherwise sell them cheaply. Property is property, you should be free to do what you want with them. Otherwise it's not property. It's like saying "you have a car, you need to use it everyday, otherwise we can justify people borrowing your car when they need one". Also, rent controls, aren't they a thing in some parts of Germany…

to my sibling comment, so what you're saying is, mob rule? this is probably defacto how it is, but it does not make it right. Nobody else has any rights to what I own, and I dont have rights to them. this kind of thinking that the "society" can just set rules that violates other people is a sick and disgusting development, this form of communist cancer has to be destroyed.

Look, there are two possible definitions of "ownership" and "property". One is, you own whatever you can physically keep. If you have a pretty stone, and I come to you, and bash your head in, and take your stone, guess what, it's mine now. If I scoop your brains out of your half-broken skull, I'll have a new ashtray too, so I profit off this exchange!

The second definition is, whatever set of rules the society enforces to prevent the scenario described above, which define what I can keep, and under what conditions. You could say these rules "violate other people" and is "communist cancer", and you're right in a way - my natural right of coming over to you and bashing your head in is surely being violated now! But I prefer this anyway, because it also protects me from getting my head bashed in by someone stronger than me.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#159

Post by Jedd »

sremani wrote: post #112
deanc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a nuanced issue and I agree with what you wrote. I live in Finland. Some additional thoughts: - The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions. - The state vs government system in the US means it's every state for themselves when solving social issues. This is seen in states actively shipping homeless people to warmer climate states in order to make the…

>> The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. True. Just for some comparison, if Finland was a metropolitan in US, it would be ranked 10th. Above Phoenix metro and Below Atlanta Metro. I understand the good intentions of people trying to show case 'Scandinavian countries' as a model. They miss many things including Scale.

> They miss many things including Scale.

Yes, it's very easy to completely miss scale, as well as missing sensible priorities, etc, and embrace a mantra of exceptionalism as a convenience.

Apropos ranking, the United States spends more on military / defense than the next 10 countries combined.

Re: Given a place to live, Finland’s homeless were better able to deal with problems

#160

Post by jxramos »

chii wrote: post #117
deanc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a nuanced issue and I agree with what you wrote. I live in Finland. Some additional thoughts: - The scale of social problems in the US is on a whole other level. More people requires bigger solutions. - The state vs government system in the US means it's every state for themselves when solving social issues. This is seen in states actively shipping homeless people to warmer climate states in order to make the…

> also cold in many places in the US ... so people die all the time there too. The cold climate locations in the US does not have homeless during the winter, because they move away to warmer climates. There's no warmer climate to be in for Finland.

I used to see homeless sleeping in the doorway/building entrances in DC in the evenings while it was snowing outside. It terrified me. They had a few blankets and would huddle up.
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