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

Bigger country also has far more available resources.

From TFA: >>So, more than a decade after the launch of the “Housing First” policy, 80 per cent of Finland’s homeless are doing well, still living in the housing they’d been provided with — but now paying the rent on their own.

>>This not only helps the homeless, it turns out to be cheaper.

That bears repeating: it turns out to be cheaper

The solution can be found in the common refrain of conservative ideologues fighting against social programs —— it isn't the government that knows how to best spend the money, it is the people.

The really simple solution to homelessness and poverty is: Literally house the homeless and give UBI to everyone at a poverty level.

It turns out that the individual people really often do know how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as long as they have bootstraps.

A tiny house with a fixed address, bed, toilet, shower, and cooktop eliminates enormous classes of problems both for the unfortunate people, and the rest of society. A basic income is most commonly used by people to improve themselves. Yes, there will always be sad examples of people who fail and use it to drink/drug themselves to death, but every actual study I've read shows that these are vastly outnumbered by those who use the minimal resources to get out of their personal hell; this is just another in those long series of studies.

And to those who scream "moral hazard - you're rewarding bad behavior! Welfare queens!!" — bullsh^t. The richest societies in the world can afford to provide basic housing, food, and medical care to all their residents (but not the entire world, immigration controls are needed). No one wants to be in the dregs of homelessness and poverty. And, the objective results are better outcomes, more people overcoming their problems and becoming self-supporting.

Problems get big if they are ignored for long enough. Fix the root causes first: https://www.retireguide.com/retirement-planning/risks/medica...

Whatever remains can be solved with social housing.

I don't think this point is true. You'll find plenty of homeless people in Seattle from Great Falls Montana, for example. Bus tickets are easy enough to purchase, you don't even have to be shipped. People will migrate where they can survive at least, they aren't stuck in Spokane, Great Falls, or Bismarck. It is always possible to get to LA, some will even get to Honolulu.

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.

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.

This seems a basic requirement for anyone trying to get to a better life. Are there no more enlightened shelters that provide some secure locker or parcel-checkin system?

Those area's are pretty bad, but they're not as dangerous as e.g. in the US. I guess it's because the addicts are mostly alcoholics and they get just enough government money to buy their daily booze.

So I could literally go away for a long weekend and come back and be homeless? That's _way_ too short!

Same for France

Providing enough housing to eliminate housing would bring rents down. That's bad for profits.

Taking away the fear of homelessness gives low end workers more negotiating muscle. This means hence higher wages and less incentive to work as hard. Again, really bad for profits.

This is why western governments feign the willingness to do something about it by half heartedly attacking the symptoms (e.g. drugs) rather than fixing the actual cause (lack of homes).

It's also why the media fights so hard to misrepresent the causality between drugs and homelessness.

Yeah, right.

Since we are going on personal beliefs rather than hard facts, I suspect is number is very low.

Not sure I agree on student loans though. The main reason I struggle with that one is because it seems to me to be a regressive policy: most people with student loans (though certainly not all) are better off that people who didn't have the opportunity to pursue higher education at all. So forgiving student loans benefits a chunk of the population, but does nothing for those who are even more in need (some of whom might have chosen a different path if they'd known they could have their debts forgiven). I'd rather see policies that can benefit everyone in financial need proportionally.

A lot of social dysfunction makes a lot more sense if you assume a large chunk of people actually do go around thinking that both good and bad outcomes must have been earned somehow and so are deserved whether or not you can establish a causal link.

Every student loan forgiveness proposal I see suggests that taxpayers foot the bill and the counterargument is why should those who did not attend and/or those who paid off have to foot the bill.

I agree with that counterargument and will never vote for forgiveness.

However, send put a proposal in front of me that seizes assets from the universities selling these degrees that apparently can never pay for themselves and sell off their assets to pay down student loan debt? You'll get my vote.

I just named basic pillars of any modern society. Yes economic approach is very effective in open markets and due to historical reasons gives US top spot in global economy, but society as a whole is much more selfish and less humane. Not something future generations will look and judge kindly, unless we reverse massively due to some catastrophes (and then nobody will care about the past anyway).

One of the reasons very few people from richer western Europe strive to move to US, its just a bad quality of life overall and more 'primitive' cruel society, which define actually important stuff in life much more than just raw paycheck amount. And yes its cruel, walk among homeless folks in LA that should be in professional psychiatric facilities, and not dying slowly on streets in front of everybody, without much care, for decades.

Welfare programs are not wealth redistribution but income redistribution.

Sometimes, people who do everything right end up homeless due to illness, rising rents, death in the family, or any multitude of reasons. If we gave these people free housing and resources, they'd likely bounce back and be fine.

If we mix in folks who are drugged out beyond belief, who are violent, who have no desire to improve, it taints the entire project. Do you want to put a family of 4 trying to get by next door to some shirtless guy with a machete who constantly threatens to stab everyone? Why? Now all the neighbors complain, crime goes up, etc.

It's time to admit some people either aren't worth helping, or at least can't be helped in the way that others can.

I’m a naturalized citizen and US is my one and only home. It’s sad that half the people I meet seem to hate living here and even hate their own country.

When I was in Japan there was a massive rainfall and Kyoto station was flooding. I saw a bunch of old people appear out of nowhere wearing bright vests and helping to remove the mud and water. I found out they were elderly volunteers and that it’s just something Japanese people do there.

In the US I feel like it’s so rare to see that kind of unity unless it’s a situation already dialed to 11.

The investor class in the US treats people here like cattle. And the cattle all know they’re fucked unless they can elevate into the investor class.

This was over ten years ago and, obviously, house prices have increased a lot and I eventually got back on my feet but, the point is that you can find yourself in a situation that you're not mentally equipped to deal with at that moment in time regardless of all other external factors.

Legal opoids just lead to more dead bodies piling up, which is why many countries put heavy restrictions on legal opoids.

People treated the hotel like home base, and still spent their nights howling. I had to move the screaming was so loud.

Not to mention the drugs, human trafficking, etc.

In terms of environment, it didn’t deduce things like human feces on the street.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but the neighborhood was mostly unlivable.

That’s not a real solution.

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.

Housing first is the new doctrine because it is cheaper than shelters in the long run.

Someone living in the streets and shelters is unable to care for themself because they spend all their time, money and effort trying to stay warm, fed and clean. Once they have a place to sleep, cook, wash and keep their stuff safe, they have resources to address their own wellbeing.

When they were sleeping rough, any resources spent on their wellbeing went down the drain. And more resources needed to address the damage to the society.

Unfortunately not, it's cold but you can endure it, and it'll make you apathetic, and then it's over.

I do question that it's largely the winter weather responsible. Even in places like Chicago, where the winter does get cold enough to quickly kill, there is still a large homeless population, so the weather alone isn't all that's at work. And similarly, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk are also very northerly cities with some serious winter weather, and there were plenty of homeless there too.

Homelessness may not be the root cause, but it effectively prevents one from having a normal life.

One is unable to help oneself if they spend all of their time, money and effort staying warm, fed and safe.

> A drug addict provided with a house as a home will turn that house into a cesspit in very short time. The drug addict does not clean, does not take out the trash, does not repair. The drug addict will invite other drug addicts to the house, essentially turning it into what is called a drug house. The house can no longer be lived in, and it stops being a home.

If you do this you get evicted from normal housing.

Which is why the supported "housing first" initiative apartment blocks come with rules, social workers, etc. Typically they tolerate substance abuse but have restrictions on number of visitors, visiting hours, etc.

> Helping SF drug addicts is a noble cause and should be done - but not by giving them a free house. They need help with their drug addiction first and foremost. Having somewhere to shelter while they get that help is a necessary part of the solution but it is the solution.

It's is extremely difficult to try to get out of substance abuse or mental illness issues when living rough.

This is exactly why the paradigm of giving housing first exists. Previous attempts at helping the homeless with substance abuse and mental health were fruitless. All the money and effort put into that had very poor results. Give the keys to a normal apartment to an addict and they'll be doing drugs instead of paying rent and back on the streets in a few months.

Housing first, addressing problems second was found to be much more effective. This was researched extensively. About 80% of people given supported housing get out of homelessness [0]. That's a massive difference to earlier "shelter only" model of social support for the homeless.

[0] https://www.hdl.fi/blog/asunto-ensin-tavoitteena-pysyva-asum...

There are other ways of seeing this. It can start the other way around for instance. I.e. if you end up on the streets; both drugs and alcohol can numb the pain of your current situation, slowly but surely giving you a drug problem on top of your homelessness problem.

I fully agree about what can easily happen if we just offered free housing to people with severe drug problems. I'm just wondering if we are using that as an excuse not to help people with something we know is an effective method.

Even people with serious drug problems must have a much better chance of kicking their habit if they can avoid living in a tent or under a bridge. How do these horrible conditions with constant fear of being robbed/raped help them kick their habit?

> Help needs to be directed on the root cause and issues and homelessness is a symptom, not a cause.

Lets assume that the root cause is child abuse, i.e. they are on drugs due to being molested, i.e. molestation is the "root cause". How are we helping that person better by allowing them to live in a place like skid row, where they say that almost 100% of the women living there have been raped (while living there)? I'm just not seeing how the tent/under-a-bridge lifestyle adds anything to our "assistance/help" here?

More and more "middle-class" people are moving out of the city, especially those with children. Schools are starting to close classes for lack of pupils.

There is a lot of government-subsidized housing, but it's very tough to get any if you actually make some money. They mostly go to the poorest, of which there are many. Waiting lists are long (think multiple years).

Private sector housing is very expensive and landlords won't rent to you if you don't make three times the rent and have a long-term contract. 1000 € a month would get you a studio apartment, yet require you to make 3000 € a month. That's "a good salary".

Want to buy? Nah. With 3000 € a month, you better have a serious down payment (rich parents, I guess?), or banks won't lend you a cent.

You figured being freelance would net you a better income? Sure, but guess what? That's not "stable employment", so banks will laugh you out the door. You also won't qualify for the landlord insurance scheme if you resign to rent, so better know someone with a stable contract who'll cosign for you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/nyregion/the-homeless-she...

More or less, yes. See my other comment on the city's homeless-industrial complex.

Weather is part of the reason, but not the most important one. If it were, San Diego would have a worse homeless problem than San Francisco.

The most important difference is that the city of San Diego spends one third as much as San Francisco per homeless person. ($46.8 million in city spending[1] for an estimated 1900 homeless.[2])

San Francisco has an enormous homeless-industrial complex that uses every virtue-signaling, heart-tugging propaganda tool at its disposal to increase the flow of money thrown into its bottomless maw, despite no metric ever improving one bit whatsoever.

[1] <https://www.lajollalight.com/news/story/2023-04-15/san-diego...>

[2] <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-07/downtown...> [3]

[3] The count is only of the homeless in downtown San Diego. While presumably most homeless San Diegans are there, just as there are very few San Franciscans living on the sidewalk in Pac Heights, the point is that a larger number would mean that much less spending per homeless person in the city as a whole, and that much more glaring a discrepancy between the two cities.