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Finland is the only EU country where homelessness is in decline
- maxharris 7y agoTo help contextualize this so I understand the situation better, can someone compare and contrast what treatment for debilitating mental health issues such as schizophrenia looks like in Finland vs. the US? The second issue is, In the last 10 years, the “Housing First” programme provided 4,600 homes in Finland. In 2017 there were still about 1,900 people living on the streets. In the US, there are something like half a million people living on the streets.
- svantana 7y agoThe US has about 60x the population of Finland, so on a per capita basis the situation (sans programme) seems comparable.
- splitrocket 7y agoCorrect, and generally speaking, economic of scale should apply to social sector programs. In theory, it should be 60x easier for the US to house everyone, simply because we have more resources to aggregate. Even when you compare per capita GDP, Finland's doing it with $50k, while the US is at $62.5k.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoIs the US in fact spending less money on homelessness, though? My guess would be that it's spending a comparable amount on a per-person basis.
- soulofmischief 7y agoThe US citizen sees a fraction of their tax dollar ever actually reach the ground. The rest gets caught up in people's pockets on the way down. We would need to adjust for this but it's unclear how to create a heuristic.
- _jal 7y agoDo you have evidence that there's more friction/graft in the US than, say, Finland?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- soulofmischief 7y agoI don't, because I don't know how to calculate it. Like I said, we need a heuristic but I don't know how to go about it. But it's an important qualifier when we're trying to isolate this problem to just the economics of solving homelessness.
- pavlov 7y agoThere's the established Corruption Perceptions Index published annually by Transparency International: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index Finland is ranked #3 while US is #22.
- yokaze 7y agoThe keyword here is "perception". I am not convinced that the perception is deserved.
- claudeganon 7y agoA great deal of spending in the US suffers the problem of direct versus some form of market disintermediation. So, instead of just building houses for people, we funnel it through myriad private or semi-private bureaucracies and suffer their corruption and graft.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoThat appears to be happening in Finland as well. The article says that state funding is funneled through "NGOs such as the Y-Foundation" who are responsible for actually getting the housing.
- claudeganon 7y agoYes, it’s not a binary situation. But Finland also directly took over several private/NGO shelters and converted them to apartment blocks. In the US, this would be considered verboten in most major cities because of the challenge it poses to everyone involved in real estate speculation and development.
- chimeracoder 7y ago> Correct, and generally speaking, economic of scale should apply to social sector programs. In theory, it should be 60x easier for the US to house everyone, simply because we have more resources to aggregate. People always like to rush to talk about economies of scale, completely forgetting that diseconomies of scale are also a thing. (And even that's all assuming that you think Finland's demographics are comparable to the US's and that causes of homelessness and poverty in Finland are representative of the causes of homelessness and poverty in the US.)
- mkohlmyr 7y agoI'm actually not convinced on the surface of it that economies of scale apply to government. It seems to me like the larger the population, the more layers of government required to effectively deploy capital. If you assumed a similar per capita tax rate, but more government is required to deploy the taxes in a larger nation, the larger nation would presumably end up with less money deployed per capita. Of course I am neither a social scientist, economist or political scientist.
- joshspankit 7y agoThe simpler the program, the less layers you need. If the todo list for a homeless person is: - Assign open apartment - Digitally fill out form B12 - Deposit money Then there is very little work required. Where social programs have the highest overhead is where they do things like “Assess whether it’s ‘required’ based on binders 3 through 7” and “Continually check in with all other governmental arms to validate that they are meeting criteria”.
- JanSt 7y agoThe US also has 60x as many people. 327/5,5*(4600+1900) = ~386.000 (at 1 person/home)
- ianleeclark 7y agoWhy are you adding the 4600 and the 1900 together? Those 4600 have been homed.
- TacticalTable 7y agoHomed by a process that the United States also doesn't have and would need. It would be dishonest to compare the rates without including the cases that Finland has already solved through a similar (but not as far reaching) program.
- ianleeclark 7y ago> It would be dishonest to compare the rates No, I think it's perfectly honest to compare the rates of homelessness in a country that has worked to improve the situation versus a country that continues to let people die in the streets. It seems far more dishonest to compare the rates before the work was done, considering that work was done to reduce the problem. The reason that the US now has a roughly 5x rate of homelessness (and, let's face it, growing) vs a roughly 1.3x rate of homelessness is because the United States has no interest in fixing the problem.
- raxxorrax 7y agoI still don't believe in fractional reserve banking.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoThey've been homed, but subsidies for the housing of previously homeless people are typically aggregated under homeless spending. (The US has a lot of programs like that as well.)
- MuffinFlavored 7y agosource for 500,000 homeless people in America claim?
- Someone1234 7y agoThe US Government: > According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Annual Homeless Assessment Report, as of 2018 there were around 553,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night, or 0.17% of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...
- splitrocket 7y agoThe 2018 annual "point in time" count done by the federal housing administration: https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5783/2018-ahar-part-1-pit-estimates-of-homelessness-in-the-us/ https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5783/2018-ahar-part-1-...
- gamblor956 7y agoThey never had Reagan, so they still treat mental illness there. More importantly, Finland allows for the involuntary commitment if the mentally ill. In the US, this is only allowed if the individual presents a danger to themselves or others.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoThe government shouldn't be able to just walk around pointing fingers trying to put individuals in "therapy". Particularly the sort the is available at minimal budget government facilities.
- AQuantized 7y agoDo you feel that is an accurate characterization of mental health care in non-US countries with different requirements for commitment, like Finland?
- pjc50 7y agoThat's almost what the Finnish system requires: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/231986/compulsory_psychiatric_detention_and_treatment_in_finland.pdf?sequence=1 https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/231986/comp... "The current Finnish Mental Health Act stipulates thefollowing criteria for compulsory admission: .a person should be found to have a psychotic illness,and .because of this psychosis, they are (.in need of psychiatric care as their condition would otherwise worsen [this is the main different criterion], or .a danger to their own health or welfare, or .a danger to the health or welfare of others) .no other mental health services are suitable or adequate (Finland of course has proper free at the point of use healthcare for all residents, a far more important point for mental health than involuntary commitment.)
- gamblor956 7y agoThe main different condition makes all the difference... That would describe more than two thirds of the homeless.
- 7y ago
- duiker101 7y agoWhy can't the issue be looked at a state level then?
- maxharris 7y agoI take issue with the practice of labeling everyone on the street as "homeless", because the truth is that there are many different causes: * battered spouses fleeing domestic violence * runaway teenagers * veterans whose mental and physical injuries * debilitating mental illness * impossibly high housing costs due to NIMBYism and local regulations * alcoholism, drug, gambling addiction That's not an exhaustive list, of course. We have to start by changing the way we speak about this. We need labels that strike at the heart of each issue, that capture the thing that's really going on, not just the surface-level phenomenon. I live in LA, and I don't own a car, and many people that live on the street don't either. Does that mean that it's valid to label us all as "carless"? I believe that the words we use matter, because they shape our thinking, and therefore the policies that we ultimately enact. Calling everyone "homeless" leads to attempts to treat multiple diseases with the same cure, and I believe that is ultimately doomed to failure.
- jallasprit 7y agoI understand your point about labeling individuals affected by a wide variety of circumstances. I think this is a case of applying a group term in order to make informed decisions in order to aid people in need of a place to live.
- rwem 7y ago"We need labels that strike at the heart of each issue" That's pretty much the opposite of the "housing first" approach.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- retrac 7y agoWhile I'd say it's generally been successful, the experiments with housing first programs here in Canada have failed some specific categories of people pretty badly. In Calgary and London, people with serious mental illness in particular would get an apartment, only to end up facing eviction before long because of conflicts with neighbours or property damage. Some were housed for less than a month before eviction. Someone with active psychosis, someone with substantial market income but fleeing an abusive partner, and someone with a stable social and personal situation but who simply can't afford rent on their fixed pension, all require different interventions to keep them stably housed in the long run. "Housing first" has a habit of being "housing only" support, which works for many people but not for everyone.
- gridlockd 7y agoThe headline is factually wrong. The truth is that Finland has reduced the population of homeless by 35% over ten years[1]. While I applaud easing the bureaucratic hurdles in giving people access to homes, in many cases not being offered a home is not the reason why people are homeless. It's simply not "as easy as that". [1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle...
- splitrocket 7y agoLogically, your argument is baffling on its face: homelessness is literally the condition of not having a home. Giving someone a home literally solves the problem. All that said, "Housing First" is the most effective, lowest cost, evidence based program we have to substantially lower homelessness. It works, and it's vastly cheaper than both the status quo ( https://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/resources/lessons/million-dollar-homeless-patient https://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/resources/lessons/... ) and just about everything else we've tried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First#Evidence_and_outcomes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First#Evidence_and_out...
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoThe article mentions that 1900 people still live on the streets and 1 in 5 homeless people will not be able to keep their Housing First flat. It would appear that Housing First has not been able to solve their problem.
- gridlockd 7y ago> Logically, your argument is baffling on its face: homelessness is literally the condition of not having a home. Giving someone a home literally solves the problem. That's over-simplistic reasoning. Yes, we have a word called "homeless" that we use to refer to people living on the streets. That does not imply giving them a home solves the problem, or that the lack of such offers is what keeps them in that condition. If the simple reasoning was correct, why couldn't Finland solve the problem by offering free housing with no strings attached? That's not to say that such policies aren't helpful to those who really just lack access to housing. It doesn't end there though, that's my point.
- Bostonian 7y ago"Those affected by homelessness receive a small apartment and counselling – without any preconditions." I doubt it will work in Finland in the long run, and even if it does, Finland and the U.S. have very different populations. Most Americans work to put a roof over their head, and it's unfair to them to "unconditionally" give some people housing. It's also a big disincentive to work. The current unemployment rate is 3.5%. There are homeless shelters to prevent people from freezing to death, but that's very different from giving someone their own apartment. Millions of people would love a "small apartment" in Manhattan or San Francisco but cannot afford to live there. Are you going to allocate the apartments to people who are not contributing to society?
- geofft 7y agoYes.
- ahelwer 7y agoSo would you say you're happy & satisfied to live in a society where people must work under threat of dying in the streets? Try to imagine a better world. People should work because they choose to, not at gunpoint. I don't feel it's unfair that someone is given a house, even though I "worked for it" (among many other factors which culminated in my not being homeless). Would you mind unpacking why you feel that way?
- Bostonian 7y ago"People should work because they choose to, not at gunpoint." Ultimately taxes are collected at gunpoint too, and collecting more taxes to pay for free apartments for the homeless and other welfare spending means more coercion.
- ahelwer 7y agoHere, let me help you: try to imagine a society in which you want to live, not a random bunch of ideas like "taxation is theft at gunpoint" without regard to where that would lead.
- metalrain 7y agoWhile homelessness might be in decline and shelters have more capacity, you can still find people sleeping on the floors of public pay-per-use toilets in Finland. So no, homelessness is not ended and probably never will be.
- throwlaplace 7y agoLol and polio and measles will never be eradicated either because we still have cases. oh wait there's a reason why they haven't been eradicated hmmmmm.
- calmworm 7y agoI don’t see the connection. What is the point you are trying to make here?
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoMaybe a homelessness vaccine?
- throwlaplace 7y agomy point is that to assume that something that has existed (continues to exist) will never cease to exist is fallacious reasoning.
- huffmsa 7y agoBad analogy. If the fins were actively rounding up homeless and forcing them into shelters, or disposing of them, then you'd have a case.
- throwlaplace 7y agoi don't need a proper analogy when op that i responded to commits is-ought fallacy. that's my point - to lay bare that fallacy.
- vesinisa 7y ago
- at-fates-hands 7y agoFor some perspective: Finalnd's military budget: 300 million US military budget: 700 BILLION The US could dump a lot of money into these social services to address people who are homeless, drug addicts, and other people on the fringes of society. We are however, constantly put in a place where other nations depend on us for their security. As such, they don't have to have a massive defensive budget when they can rely on us to take care of them. If we had a military budget that was more inline with simply keeping our own country safe, we would have a ton more money to take care of the people who really need it.
- commandlinefan 7y agoAssuming, of course, that if Finland had to provide for its own defense (rather than relying on us), they would still have money left over for social programs.
- Gravityloss 7y agoHow are you providing for the defense of Finland? Maybe you're a conscript in the Finnish armed forces?
- pjc50 7y agoAccusing Finland of not providing for its own defense is an insult to the memory of the Winter War. It's one of the few European countries that still has universal conscription!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- aglavine 7y ago1. USA cuts military budget 2. Russia invades Finland. USA does nothing. 3. Homelessness in Finland peaks
- tappio 7y agoWhy would USA defend Finland as Finland is not part of NATO? The same way they defended Ukraine as Russia occupied Crimea and invaded East Ukraine?
- JordanFarmer 7y agoWhere is the part on how Finland has been deporting Iraqi refugees.
- distances 7y agoIn a different article, surely?
- teekert 7y agoI recently, with work, did a tour around Eindhoven (the Netherlands) together with Homeless people. I learned that one never has to be homeless in that city, there are many locations to get food, shelter and help. The homeless people on the streets have such severe ADHD that sleeping halls stress them out, or they have other mental issues, can't deal with authority, have a severe lack of trust or fear for the healthcare system, etc. It is impossible for a healthy mind to stay homeless (unless by choice).
- collyw 7y agoYou got downvoted but someone from Denmark told me something similar about their country.
- yokaze 7y agoFrom what I heard from a homeless person is, that the problem with the sleeping halls are other homeless people. It would stress anyone out, if your "cohabitants" fecate in the shower, start screaming in the middle of the night, pose a risk of physical abuse, stealing, etc... So, if you consider preferring not to live in such conditions a choice, then yes, it is impossible. But in my book, it is sounds rather like a choice of a healthy mind and not one a civilized wealthy society should put one up with.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- CryptoPunk 7y ago>>The country applies the “Housing First” concept. California also applies "Housing First", and it doesn't work. According to some reports, it gas led to social housing coming to be rife with drug use and dominated by drug dealers, because previous restrictions on drug use on premises were lifted as part of the Housing First philosophy.
- mnm1 7y agoFinland is the only country in the EU that has figured out that people need to fulfill the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy first before starting on the higher levels? Are you fucking kidding me? A college student could come up with this plan. Why isn't everyone doing it? Oh yes, I forgot about the part where it's necessary for society and government to be cruel to the homeless to demonstrate to everyone else that ... blah blah something or other stupid argument from cruel, heartless, unempathetic assholes goes here.