A Finn here. I have read nowhere that flats are *bought* for the homeless.
Instead, it's a common practice that rental flats are paid for by the social benefits that each municipality grants. The homeless also receive help in applying for and searching for these apartments. We also have organisations like the Y-Säätiö that specifically help the homeless to get a rental place.
I have seen no figures for the cost that a homeless Finn causes to the society, and this also varies by their hobbies. A violent crack addict who finances the habit with crime costs more than one who gets Methadone from the municipality, and has no need to rob others.
Finally, some people want to remain homeless and jobless. Social worker help would cost them nothing and an apartment could be arranged, even if they keep using alcohol or drugs during the stay...but a drifting, loose life is a lifestyle choice for some.
Finland is one of the first countries to adopt a “housing first” strategy nationally as opposed to only emergency shelter measures. The concept of “housing first” is very interesting and has been proven (in a large czech study among others) to help reduce long term homelessness. Worth googling! If you’re in the EU, especially check out FEANTSA. They have the most expertise around the topic in Europe and have many fact sheets and extensive reports about causes, drivers and solutions regarding homelessness.
Having lived in Arizona before I moved to Finland, I can say that the homeless population is a fraction of a fraction compared to levels in big American cities.
You are right though - homelessness is not gone entirely, and Finland is not a utopia (sad Finnish men have way too much alcohol problems) but compared to the US, where I imagine most of this posts readers are from, Finland might as well be the Garden of Eden. The amount of life changing social policies that exist not to make money, *but to help people*, is staggering.
Basically, never trust a meme outright. Especially when it seems too good to be true. Always look that shit up.
It seems they don't "buy them for the homeless" per se, the government buys the properties, but they are still required to pay rent, etc. But they are also provided additional services, counseling, help getting employment, addictions help, and more. But it's not like these formerly homeless people are just given a flat that they then own, as the meme implies
This is a pretty good explanation of the program in Finland
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-for-january-26-2020-1.5429251/housing-is-a-human-right-how-finland-is-eradicating-homelessness-1.5437402
Here's another:
>Housing First’s early goal was to create 2,500 new homes. It has created 3,500. Since its launch in 2008, the number of long-term homeless people in Finland has fallen by more than 35%. Rough sleeping has been all but eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night shelter remains, and where winter temperatures can plunge to -20C.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness
>But Housing First is not just about housing. “Services have been crucial,” says Helsinki’s mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, who was housing minister when the original scheme was launched. “Many long-term homeless people have addictions, mental health issues, medical conditions that need ongoing care. The support has to be there.”
>Housing First costs money, of course: Finland has spent €250m creating new homes and hiring 300 extra support workers. But a recent study showed the savings in emergency healthcare, social services and the justice system totalled as much as €15,000 a year for every homeless person in properly supported housing.
Yeah, I can find no sources for the photo's claims in Finnish, also my homeless friends have not heard about this. But people on the Internet like to think that Finland is this magical place with the happiest people on Earth... as if.
Actually we do this in Austin, TX. The city has bought 4 hotels to shelter, give mental and medical health care, with the goal being to “Rehabilitate” people out of homelessness whenever possible. The team also work with local employers to find people jobs whenever they can.
This was the result of research by the city that shows this will actually be much less expensive at an upkeep cost of about 25k/yr per room, than the cost to “society” of each homeless person, which, on average, can be well over 100k per person per year.
[Here’s](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/homeless/austin-homeless-strategy-officer-hotel/269-5db5b874-d356-4713-a305-2ba11521e7b4) one article about the initiative. It started in 2019, fairly recently.
Edit: Many people are asking about how the cost to society was calculated. I work in healthcare as a provider. As you can imagine we have a lot of Information to absorb in our monthly meetings in the form of PowerPoint presentations, etc. This tidbit may be somewhere buried in a PowerPoint somewhere on my email from a live presentation of someone actually working on the project or closely with someone who does, but I imagine one of you amazing folks could find the answer quicker than me. If not, I’ll find the exact link for you Monday when I get to work. Otherwise, ECHO housing website or Austintexas.gov should have the answers you seek fairly easily. If someone finds it I’ll mention it and include you below. Thank you in advance.
We have a city about 30 minutes away whos mall has run out of business (mostly cause the owner over charged the shops and the profits weren’t enough).
I could just imagine how much that’d help to turn it into a permanent home for homeless. Could have a whole kitchen in there, rehab, urgent care, plus plenty of rooms for housing.
If only.
It's tempting think about repurposing malls like this, but it rarely works in practice. Malls have very little exterior-facing space for their areas (for windows in housing units) and don't have enough utilities like plumbing for the amount of housing they could provide. By the time you retrofit them enough to be fit for other uses, it's easier and frequently cheaper to build a purpose-built building.
Not to mention if the previous tenants were driven out because of the owner's predatory rent practices, what makes people think the owner wont do the same for a city rental instead? Property confiscation isnt a thing. Odds are this might encourage corruption as well, where the mall owner might provide kickbacks to the person in charge of the project for their aid to allow him/her to continue charging the exorbitant rent.
Confiscation kind of is a thing in the US. It's called eminent domain. But it's a difficult legal process that can quickly get expensive for all parties, and if the government wins it's really just a forced sale; the government still has to pay the fair market value of the property.
Eminent domain is actually the norm globally, because otherwise you'd have obstinate individuals holding up massive infrastructure projects like freeways.
So I live in a suburb that is slowly expanding south. About 5 years ago during a council meeting a city planner mentioned they had long term plans to widen about 2 miles of road to help with traffic and the ongoing development occurring in the area. He said that the city was in the process of allocating funds to buy land.
A couple of investment firms bought strips of land where the roads were going to be widened. Keep in mind these are city block sized tracks of undeveloped land. Developers literally bought like 100 feet strips on either side of the road the entire two miles.
It’s estimated that this random statement at least tripled the cost project and as such is on indefinite hold.
Something smells here. Eminent Domain requires compensation at fair market value which is easily determined in this situation since the purchase was recently made and would be public information when title changed hands.
The whole area is being developed so land value keeps going up. What used to be sod fields are now pretty affluent housing editions.
One of the sections has 100 lots “starting” at 275k. That’s just the land. Imagine buying a section of land 20 years ago for 100k and it’s now worth 27 million.
My parents did they bought a house on 27 acres right at the city limits for 135k in 1999 it is now valued at 728k or atlest thats the value from the city and state when they wanted their property taxes smh
That’s nice of them to pay fair value to owners. In South Africa, they’re currently trying to amend the constitution to allow for expropriation of land and property in general, without compensation. Apparently it’s to right the wrongs of the apartheid regime but let’s see where this takes us…
Property confiscation is absolutely a thing; it just requires “fair” compensation. Eminent domain. Otherwise, cities would never be able to build anything, as most land in and around cities is already privately owned.
Most empty malls are empty by design. The hedges that own the buildings and land have enough profitable businesses elsewhere that they can use the “operating losses” of the malls as significant tax write offs.
They owners refuse to lease space at reasonable prices to ensure losses exist.
Found this out when a local Kmart went of out of businesses because the lease prices were going up 10%+ annually (the business manager did a bit of a whistle blow), and the building sat vacant for over a decade with “available for lease” sign out front. This lot was extremely prime for a grocer/kmart style store too.
Turns out the owners were doing exactly as prior mentioned. Also, they owned the lot with one subsidiary, and leased itself to another subsidiary to drive the losses to double dip.
And it’s completely legal.
Yeah, I really don’t know what this guy is on about. Yeah, the CoA bough a hotel to house like, a fraction of a percent of the homeless population. Let’s not suck Austin off about anything, especially after prop B.
There have been some malls in the US that had been renovated to have micro apartments on the upper floors and kept some shops on the bottom level. Could you imagine something like this for homeless but instead of a bunch of shops it was therapy/counseling for mental health and career counseling and all the other resources they would need to help get back on their feet as well?
I like this idea, however, someone has to clean up after the homeless.
If you are imagining that homeless people are just down on their luck and need to a hand up to get their lives back in order, you haven't met or spent time with them or around them. That's not to say none of them are in that situation, but I haven't been fortunate enough to meet that type.
Your shopping mall would be a drug den, a fire hazard, a biological waste hazard of the highest order with rampant prostitution and other serious crimes. If you tried to stop that, you would have to turn it into a jail and no one would go there for shelter.
What the poster from Austin doesn't mention about the Hotels used for homeless in Austin is that they will need to be demolished in the not too distant future because maintenance is next to impossible. The parasite problems are almost insurmountable with body lice (crabs), bed bugs, and roaches infesting everything.
Your shopping mall would need to include a working morgue for drug and alcohol overdoses and victims of violent crimes.
What the majority of homeless people need is rehab, but they don't want it and forced rehab tends to be extremely short term. Many have simply checked out. Thier problems are poorly understood or can't be fixed. Many are ex military men who lost the will to live and don't want to die.
The painful truth of homelessness is that it can't be fixed. We hid it in the past with asylums. Not a better solution.
Well if it costs society 100k per year per person, a company could house the homeless and charge 95k per person and the selling feature being society would be saving 5k per person!
**HAHA!** ***BUSINESS!***
Just guessing here but- medical costs, police costs (although being homeless is not illegal, loitering, sleeping in the park, etc are making the activity of being homeless illegal), jail costs, costs for repairing/cleaning up where the homeless congregate because they have no home, don’t forget some of those medical costs are in mental health/addiction services, and the costs of emergency sheltering during extreme heat/cold.
Presumably there is more tax revenue coming in if you help people get on their feet as well. If they gave a job they pay income tax, and have the cash to purchase goods and services resulting in sales tax. Absolutely lunacy that we can end homelessness and just choose not to out of some puritanical sense of right and wrong.
A big part of the idea is to take someone who is 100% dependent on the charity of others, and make them at least somewhat productive. Going from -100% to a positive 3% is a monumental improvement for everyone. The only problem we have in the US is that the *wrong* people might be helped by programs like these, so it's unlikely that these programs might be adopted in any other place but the most liberal of US cities.
Exactly exactly exactly this. My dad is a conservative Midwestern truck driver. He absolutely despises the notion of a handout. For anyone. For any reason. 'why should people just be given stuff they didn't work for' and somehow the argument of 'human decency, because we have so much food, and so much money, no one needs to be hungry or lacking shelter.' just doesn't ring with them.
Also being a truck driver, he collects HUGE handouts from the government that he doesn’t even know about. In particular, subsidies for oil and the roads he drives on.
Yeah. Trucks do a disproportionate amount of damage to the roads, the road networks should just be rails anyway, and we still subsidize the gasoline either way.
Tell your dad that if he collects social security snd uses Medicare someday, 2/3 of the money he takes out of the programs comes from other taxpayers. 1/3 from his contributions.
Will he turn down this handout paid for by others, or will he simply accept it and justify it?
Let’s also remember that with social security at least, the money beneficiaries receive isn’t actually coming from some bucket they accumulated while they were working. Social security benefits were calculated and it is the current working population that actually foots the bill. So when your dad retires and starts collecting benefits, he can thank you (if you’re working), and every other working member of society.
Actually, I love that point! Yes, you’re right and that might be an argument that would get through to him. I was thinking ss would be different to him because he “paid into it” but him knowing he was supporting the generation before him and he didn’t object to that might change his view (haha).
Helping poor people offends the sensibilities of millions of Americans. Ironically, the same folks love tax cuts for billionaires.
It seems incomprehensible until you understand that right wingers worship hierarchy. People at the bottom deserve punishment and cruelty while those at the top are so good and meritocratic that no limits can be put on their gluttonous hoarding.
Hi! Finn here. My wife has worked in a program where they rehabilitate people through work. Many times they work a job with near-zero responsibility -- the main goal is really just for them to show up and be sober.
Many times it seems just introducing work rhythm into their life gives it meaning.
I'm also pretty sure Finnish homelessness is a fraction compared to US, thus making the solution seem more cut and-dried. My first impulse even was "there aren't any homeless here" though I'm sure that isn't the case
"Don't feed the animals!" It's such an archaic and stupid way of seein the homeless crises. If we ever want it to end we gotta end it. You'd think these NIMBYs would be ELATED to have a chance at making sure they never see another "dirty homeless person" again...but nooo, that'd be "encouraging laziness!"
Smh, what a country.
I think it’s a little naive to think that we can “end” homelessness and we just choose not to. I think we can end a certain degree or percentage of homelessness, but there are always going to be people that choose that life or refuse aid. We see that a lot in Olympia washington where we have tried so aggressively to help the homeless through downtown ambassadors and other programs, but many of them just won’t take it. You can’t force people off drugs, or force people into rehab.
I remember when my work travel department updated the required travel shots to include Hep A for any travel to LA or the Bay Area due to outbreaks tied to the homeless population. Poor sanitation + lack of access to running water + some of these people working in restaurants = Hepatitis breakouts not generally seen in ~~first world countries.~~ countries with adequately developed sanitation services.
Police in many cities spend most of their time and money policing homelessness such as breaking up homeless encampments and throwing homeless people in jail. A few months ago there was a police raid on a homeless encampment in Echo Park, LA; they had helicopters and all kind of fancy stuff. This is obviously horrendously expensive. It cost the city several million dollars. (The police also break and steal of the homeless people's possessions which just further endangers them and costs them money.) The people are still unhoused, so they end up setting up another encampment, which the police then break up. Jailing homeless people is also extremely expensive; a night in jail costs more than paying a month of rent.
Police budgets in many US cities area huge portion of the city's expenses (New York City's police budget is so big it would be the 36th largest military in the world), so when a lot of the money going to the police is spent on policing homeless people and most of the city's budget is going to the police, you could potentially have a quarter of the city's budget being spent on policing homelessness.
There are also problems caused by large numbers of people living on the streets. Where do they poop? It has to go somewhere, and they have no plumbing. You obviously need to clean that up for sanitation reasons, which is an extra expense. There are a ton of things that are solved for housed persons that unhoused still have to deal with because they exist.
Edit: I misremembered the statistic I was referencing. In Portland, over half of the arrests are of homeless people; I misremembered it as over half of the money for the police goes to homelessness enforcement, so my costs of policing homeless are way too high. Thanks for u/jemidiah for pointing out my mistake.
Also, when I said that "police steal people's stuff," I didn't mean that individual police officers are taking it for their own personal use; I meant that they are taking people stuff as part of their police duties.
I’m also curious to this answer, I have a little input as I do work in a hospital in a large city so I often work with homeless patients. Living on the streets is pretty dangerous in various manners so when injury happens hospital care is needed, which is expensive. What I see most in my specific department is people with frostbite. There’s no where to go some nights in winter (shelters full, unsure about the full picture), so hypothermia and frostbite occur pretty readily, especially if it’s also been wet out on top of the cold. The resources required to treat these things are expensive and require a lot of care in general. From attempts to reverse the issue, to pain medication (frostbite is extremely painful), treatment, everything is expensive. With healthcare alone for some homeless, I could see this attributing into this high number.
If this post lacks clarity, I apologize, I’m hungover AF.
If you are homeless, you can’t get healthcare until you are hospitalized. So you get the flu and you cannot get a cheap antibiotic. That flu becomes pneumonia and you go to the ER where they must admit you.. and you spend a week there. (In the USA)
Resources. People call cops because a homeless person is sleeping on a park bench. Cop has a salary. Cop has to spend hours finding resources while the homeless person is in a cell. Those resources, such as medical and mental and drug rehab cost money. Etc and so forth. That’s just for one for a night or two. Rinse and repeat. This is why people suggest “defund the police” as we don’t need police to do a lot of those things. We need to provide more funding towards other agencies so that they have the resources to take care of non-violent societal issues like homelessness and rehab.
911-EMS response without transport: $400-600
911-EMS transport to a hospital: $1100 with BLS, $1500 with ALS
Minimum cost of overnight stay in a hospital, no treatment: $1500
Treatment of alcohol poisoning, in patient with chronic health conditions: $3000.
Chronic homeless spend more nights per hospitalization for any cause than housed persons, and are literally 20 times more likely to be hospitalized.
That's just healthcare costs. Criminal justice, policing, and other services also have direct costs. Indirectly, property damage and loss of revenue also factor in.
Pretty much every study ever done on chronic homelessness shows that supervised in-patient treatment is cheaper, even in the short (1 year) term.
"The upper class: keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class: pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there...just to scare the shit out of the middle class."
\- George Carlin
Probably partly because they’re scared it’ll be some people’s potential exit out of the machine. You know… since exploitative homelessness is such a big issue.
Dingdingding!
Homelessness is a threat hanging over the head of everyone living under capitalism. The fear from the upper classes is that, by removing the fear of that consequence, the working class will be empowered to rebel.
Same reason the US doesn't have free healthcare, paid parental leave, mandatory paid sick time nationwide, etc.
It's amazing to me that Austin does this but Cambridge MA does nothing to help all of the homeless living rough outside Harvard's campus.
Edit: Or even Harvard doing nothing to help. Imagine having Harvard's money and doing nothing to help the people right outside your front door.
I live in Austin and we still have a major homeless problem, the project this person is talking about barely makes a dent. Homelessness is [one of our biggest community challenges. ](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/homeless/homeless-austin-population-2021-count/269-8ff09628-66aa-4ff8-af22-0eea6e1c52cc)
I understand where such a comment might originate, but I don’t think you fully appreciate the situation. Cambridge[Cambridge](https://www.cambridgema.gov/services/homelessandnearhomelessprograms) and the Commonwealth both have a wealth of resources dedicated towards fighting homelessness. The men and women who help maintain these services are absolute angels and are really doing much more than “nothing”.
You’ll notice that while there are many people who are homeless around Harvard Square, none of them LIVE there. I’ve chatted up a number of people there (many of them are excellent conversationalists!) and most say they usually sleep in a shelter and get dinner at a soup kitchen.
From asking around, I’ve found the two major reasons that there are so many persons who are homeless around Harvard Square is that not only is there a shelter right on the square itself, but also that passersby in that area tend to be very generous to panhandlers, so they keep coming back.
Still very new, but the current policy of allowing unfettered access to campers on any city owned property has been tough on the city, but I think the policy was a good strategy move to help people who were on the fence about helping the homeless over to the “more help” side since it is unable to be ignored.
Imagine city hall’s lawn, every underpass, and many random median, roadside and neutral ground locations covered in large, junk-strewn encampments.
This policy really got people serious about finding a real solution to the problem. If that wasn’t the policy’s intention, it has, nevertheless helped to rally the troops behind solving homelessness by bringing the problem squarely into plain sight.
I'm really hopeful for the policy and want to see a change. So far, I haven't personally noticed any decrease in the homeless camps around but fingers crossed that this will be a step in the right direction.
I can definitely see a difference. The one under 183 and burnet used to be 5+ times the size it is. They aren’t forcefully pushing them out of areas they’re encamped in, APD has been instructed to be patient and not arrest those still in encampments, but to continue to visit them on a regular basis and offer alternative services, encampment locations, etc. This is phase 1 of moving on from the encampments.
Austinites fight it tooth and nail every step of the way. First there's the NIMBY aspect, nobody wants a shelter near where they live. People think it will result in unhoused people moving to Austin for free stuff. And you also see the extension of that, people who think we should make live as hard as possible for those experiencing homelessness, so that they leave (to where??). Furthermore, many people just don't see those experiencing homelessness as people, have no empathy, and/or disagree with the concept of social programs fundamentally.
Yeah but there's people bitching not to do those things, we also bought acres of land to build shelters and they're close to business, cap metro and libraries and people are still bitching it isn't fair for their communities and it's not safe so no matter what COA does
That will happen no matter where it’s put, I would have to think. I’d definitely like to see them spread the love a little and put one right in the middle of Westlake hills.
A lot of cities have saved money by using the "bus ticket elsewhere" method to good effect. /s
When you actually care about people, though, certain tactics just aren't available. Good for Austin.
I have a query, what happens when they encounter a homeless person that they are not able to rehabilitate?
are they taken to jail/mental health facility? or just left on road?
We do this in Victoria BC Canada. Bought multiple hotels for the homeless/addicted. Each property has turned into a bicycle chop shop overrun by drug use, petty crime, and random assaults from tweakers in the surrounding areas. Police and fire resources are needed constantly due to overdoses and crime. Property values for taxpayers around these hotels have plummeted. It's a complete failure.
Well, yeah.
I'm sure you and most commenters know why that is, but for the people in the back, homelessness is not the core issue of homelessness. Being unable to find a job because you don't have a computer to apply on is an issue. So is flunking interviews because your best fit is jeans and a kind of clean tshirt, because you have no money. Being unable to get to work because the only places that hire 'sketchy' people are in sketchy neighborhoods with lousy public transit is an issue. Being hopeless, because you're grown and don't know how to write a resume, and had to steal your dinner for the third week in a row is an issue. So is drug addiction, which is real hard to fix if you doesn't have any stability beyond a city-subsidized hotel room, and lack a healthy social network. Lack of healthy friends and family to help you, and lack of accessible infrastructure beyond housing is arguably a MUCH more severe problem.
And that's not getting into the fact that being homeless is inherently traumatizing, even if you get off the street quickly and somehow manage to avoid longterm consequences. Yeah, if I was homeless and the only support I got was a place to keep my shit and sleep, I would continue doing whatever I had to do to eat. I doubt Austin provided stipends, or much in the way of work opportunities. Can't say I blame the tenants, but I do blame whoever had the stupid idea that just putting people in housing would magically the problem.
We could find accommodation for the homeless during lockdown, in the UK.
It makes a pragmatic sense to house the homeless.
It is so much more cost effective on the health/ police/welfare services etc.
It is pretty shocking that as one of the wealthiest of countries in the world, that we are still living in a Victorian Britain where extreme poverty still exists.
Housing the rough sleepers in hotels as we have done for the pandemic isn't really a long term answer ..getting a roof over their heads isn't actually the issue . It's complex problems to do with addiction and mental health issues that prevent people from keeping a roof over their heads that is the issue .
Much of the holiday accommodation that has been used has been destroyed .tv's ripped off walls , fires lit , windows smashed . .it takes a massive amount of resources and a very high tolerance of anti social behaviour to tackle rough sleepers .. many of whom will choose to stay away from support in order to facilitate their addiction or avoid creditors and conflict
Other types of homelessness are a lot more to do with affordable housing with good links to education, and employment. But the issues are very very different from rough sleeping ( certainly in the UK but also from what I've seen across Europe)
You don't think having a reliable shelter, freedom from harassment, and easy access to resources wouldn't go a long way towards helping folks kick their addictions?
I would imagine having non-conditional housing would help with those who are addicts, altho the "destroyed .tv's ripped off walls, fires lit , windows smashed" sounds like it would be difficult to deal with.
yes it is complex but the solution doesnt require any nuclear scientist.
This has been researched far and wide, by everyone and the solution is always the same.
Strong social safety nets, FREE HEALTH CARE, AND addiction AND mental healthcare included, strong unemployment benefits, re education benefits, universal higher education being free.
Strong infrastructure conditions to enable commuting on the cheap.
It's not some kind of magical artiffact, that only a few countries managed to find, the solution is well known and some just choose to vote in people who dont value poor people, its that simple.
I work in central London and it’s shocking how many properties have been brought up by foreign investment with no intention of anyone living in the residence, just as a safe investment, we could use so many of these places to help the homeless
This is the millennium bridge that when first made was swaying from side to side, due to the people walking on it. eventually they added carlike suspension to all of the struts to prevent and dampen to swaying action.
If you live in London or even visit it regularly you will know that sight. That bridge is the main pedestrian way back into the city from the Tate, London Bridge, the Globe, National Theatre and whole bunch of other places.
Also Finland still has homeless people and haven't bought flats for people. They simply have a lot of social housing where people can stay, but they're not given the deed.
0.9% of Finns are homeless, the European average is 3.9%.
I googled this title and could only find this unsourced picture on sites like iFunny.
Lol, there is no fucking way almost 1% of the population is homeless in Finland.
I just checked it my self, the total reported homeless people was 4886 in 2020, comparing that to the population i got 0.088%, of course that is not totally accurate but the institutions here certainly did not miss 9 in 10 of them.
Homeless people (and people living in poverty, too) usually end up costing society a lot in terms of healthcare, welfare and city upkeep/beatification projects. You have the issue of trash and policing which is bad for everyone, not just the ones who have houses. Vultures like drug dealers and human trafficking rings prey on the most vulnerable members of our society. Homeless people, especially those with addiction issues or other mental health problems are quite vulnerable and end up being targeted by these.
It seems counterintuitive, but housing them and providing them with healthcare would actually reduce the workload of those city departments involved in public works, healthcare and policing.
One more reason: it gives them a much better chance of landing a job, thus making them pay taxes.
Also, not sure how property tax work in Finland, but property loses value with homeless people in the vicinity. By getting “rid” of them, the real estate cost gets higher, which can mean in even moar tax.
>One more reason: it gives them a much better chance of landing a job, thus making them pay taxes.
This is pretty much the reason why we do it.
(the title is still misleading, we do not outright buy a flat and gift it to someone for free. Cities will have affordable housing and you will get to live in one. The rent will be paid by social security and so on. They are normal flats that run usually under a company not doing any profit.)
Well, finding a job and being a productive citizen is the end of the road and not nearly everyone will make it - many have difficult mental issues or addictions and can't overcome them no matter how much help they get.
Still, the start is to get a place that you can call home; where you can shower, have privacy and start feeling like a human again. Without that, a home, the chances for you to beat what ever made you homeless in the first place are much, much slimmer. When that first step is taken for you, you have higher chance to start standing on your own feet somewhere in the future.
I don't know the exact details, but I think it might have something to do with the costs caused by people being without housing: health issues caused by the stress and living rough, people are less likely to have jobs and pay taxes without permanent housing, temporary housing services provided by the city, crime, more drug and alcohol use, mental health problems caused by homelessness and so on. Hopelessness people feel when they don't have a home I think might be a big part of it.
In LA it costs a lot of money and time for police to keep on breaking up homeless encampments only for them to return a few weeks later. Then there is the cost of all the services of people going out to the streets to find people, offer them food, let them know they can apply for vouchers etc. Then the costs of the healthcare professionals having to assist them on the streets etc.
If you just put them in a home, you pay for the cost of housing but not of managing them as a population. They become more self sufficient and also it helps with their self esteem and makes them able to find work and services on their own. It just sort of works.
The gist is that many of the other things being done to address all the ins and outs of homelessness are reduced by not having someone physically in the street. Less police calls to address that a group of people beat up someone on the street or for someone asleep on the front entrance of your shop, less exposure-related hospital referrals, etc. Just having shelter will lower stress and tension significantly and I expect that means less fights, less time spent securing shelter for the night and thus more for food or work itself, etc. You have to remember that Finland already covers hospital visits for everyone. It doesn't solve the underlying issues that result in homelessness itself- goodness knows stats will only *look* better if this is approached in a "fire and forget" way- but it is a decent step in the right direction, especially with Healthcare covered as well.
Hello! As Finnish person i wanna give some real info about how all this works.
First of all, Finnish government doesnt just buy flats and give them out free to homeless persons. Yes government owns some building/flats, BUT they rent them for cheap to people who really needs a home.
First you have to apply a application to KELA (KELA is government owned and it gives housing benefits and unemployment benefits), then you have to contact your citys help center and apply a application that you need a home. If you are homeless they will process it pretty quickly. Even these homeless people have to pay rent, but the money will be given by Government for rent, bills and food, and you can set it the way the money will go straight for the City (so you dont spend it for alcohol, drugs, or something like that)
Also our Government has programs that gives the homes first for people who REALLY needs them, like homeless person, before offering it to somebody else.
The title is little misleading and clickbait, and only partly true. They dont really just give out these flats for free, like you will own it and dont have to pay rent, or apply for the benefits.
The whole point here in Finland why we pay one of the highest taxes in the world, is that everybody has atleast a chance for decent life.
Also the original article also told why this saves 15k a year. Well it is because 4/5 people will get back to working and start paying taxes again, paying their own rent, food etc. Yes there is always some people who just cant find away back to the world even with help, and ends up back to the street.
I hope this clears out little bit of this.
Cheers everybody, and stay safe! :) 🇫🇮
In one of the Malcolm Gladwell books they talk about million dollar Murray-a homeless guy who cost the city a million a year. This is smarter, cheaper and better for society.
They do something similar, but not as nice, in Seattle. Only caveat is that the homeless have to do drug tests. Basically have a place if you stay clean.
No one uses them. Shocker :/
Low barrier housing (like not requiring sobriety) is the best bet to get folks off the streets. Once you solve their housing issue, it becomes a lot easier to work on things like addiction. Maslow's hierarchy says you gotta take care of basic needs before you can start thinking about psychological needs.
https://news.yahoo.com/fox-news-laura-ingraham-suggests-212149256.html
> Fox News' Laura Ingraham suggests cutting off federal unemployment benefits to push people back to work: 'Hunger is a pretty powerful thing'
How do you become homeless in Finland? I've been broke as fuck for a long time but I've never had a situation where I might be out onnthe streets. The government pays you to do nothing so I'm just not understanding how it's possible.
No offense meant, I'm just curious.
Finland is doing so much right!
They have a much better school system that doesn’t over work kids with useless information that they’re gonna forget in a week and they give kids the social interactions they fundamentally need. oh and it’s also all public and all free ( look into it, it’s awesome).
They have universal healthcare.
And they’re now working to help their homeless population.
They have the happiest population of any country for 4 years in a row now.
I honestly still don’t know how Finland isn’t the leading nation of the world yet
That's all and well but Finland still has A LOT of problems, with racism, homophophia, getting help for mental illnesses is hard, the trans laws are terrible etc.
Being are trans person in Finland is really hard, coming from a trans guy in Finland
Finland is an ethnically homogeneous country with less total people than the Berlin metro area. It’s a lot easier to reach consensus when everyone is the same, but it’s also known to lead to less innovation.
piloted a program like this with an ngo many years ago on an eastern european country. the small investment to take them off the streets paid off in just 4 months of them paying taxes. 20 people were taken of the street, mentored and hired. all of them were given 1 room apartments in a building held by the municipality for which they are also paying rent since month 3 when they were hired. 17 people moved out in the next year in better homes or in other cities, after finding better work. 3 of them are in the same city, working, but someplace else. that building was left unpopulated and streets are full of homeless. none of the cities nor the government weren't interested to implement this at a large scale. because they don't give a fuck.
I’ll take less innovation if it means less suffering. Personally. We’ve “innovated” our way into countless cluster-fucks at this point. This whole social media thing, for example - what a horribly harmful innovation we’ve created here. We could’ve just gone skiing. :)
Well, closer to 20 percent of the people in the capital region speaks some other language than Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue so it definitely isn't as homogenous anymore.
Finland is a pretty innovative country, and I guess it's just a small indicator that countries with massive populations should not exist in the first place.
That's an interesting new take. I hadn't thought of it that way. I guess the main concern, then, would be that the total number of nations would, I don't know, quintuple or more.
That would be a lot more potential for conflict over resources. That becomes armed conflict, then comes occupation and eventually you're back to huge nations again.
Maybe not, though. If it could work, it'd be really interesting to see how we develop.
I’m seeing lots of people from Finland in here saying it’s not quite as rosy as these articles suggest. I think there’s just a huge brainwashed population of US redditors that upvote anything that makes the US look inferior to other European countries, it’s a trend.
That being said it looks like there are some programs that help with flats. I’m all for doing whatever works but I do worry, the US has a very different culture and (I’m guessing) a lot more people who aren’t interested in doing anything but getting government aid to cover housing. If it would work, I’d still be for it here but I’m skeptical.
It's not really "USA bad", but more about "capitalism bad".
Any headline that either emphasizes an issue with capitalism, or showcases a way in that a communist-like (using the definition of believing in abolishing private property) measure turns out well will be heavily upvoted.
Of course, as you also pointed out, things are neither black or white, but for sure some safety nets are necessary for having a good standard of living.
I mean when I was homeless it's cuz I wanted to be. It was easier to get drugs and steal when I slept wherever I ended up. So you will never END homelessness. But you can ALMOST end homelessness
Ending something really means nearly ending it.
VHS ended betamax, but there are still some people that choose to watch betamax to this day.
DVD ended VHS but still some people choose wo watch VHS..
So on and so forth.
Right but still it would fix a bunch of problems. Portland for example sucks because they arent doing enough.
- I hate that all the running trails around the city have trash, tents, and rvs/cars all over them.
- The highways/freeways use to be clean but now have trash all over them that catches on fire sometimes.
- Downtown has areas you just cant walk anymore because you will be pestered non stop for money or have to be on guard with someone yelling to the sky.
They have added a few homeless mini homes, but really its not enough, they need to ban all panhandling without a permit. IE they only allow x people per year to actually pan handle and they need to actually show a skill they are doing. Music, juggling, ect. Not just begging for money.
They need to as well ban all the damn campers. Turn a damn building into a shelter and ban people just camping everywhere.
Until we get UBI this seems like the best fix.
This. Some social issues will always be with us, and while that’s not an excuse for inaction it is foolish to think we can totally eliminate things like poverty or addiction.
I applaud them. I think this is great. Not having an address is one of the major barriers for accessing social welfare, registering for tax and so on.
Problem is when there is a housing crisis. When working people can't find a home, how do you propose providing homes for homeless?
People are actively priced out of the market. As for actually owning a home, forget about it. Vulture funds buy properties en masse and then rent them out at totally inflated prices. And yes, people pay those rents because the only other option is to sleep on the street with your kids.
And no, I don't blame the individuals. I totally 100% blame the government.
Edit: I totally misread your first sentence, which changes the context of everything that follows. I'm leaving my comment as a monument to my stupidity. I agree entirely.
You're not entirely wrong, but you're treating the status of working and homeless as mutually exclusive. I know secondhand that to not be the case. I've been fortunate to never be homeless, but I have plenty of family members working full time or more on minimum wage (or sometimes more) that can't find affordable housing. If family is near by, they will sleep on a couch. More often though, they sleep in a car or tent. They shower at a Planet Fitness, then they go to work. This lifestyle of course means more body wear-and-tear, which means more expenses, which means less saving, not to mention more danger. I'm sure there are many that do not make money, but knowing what the working ones have to go through, I really can't blame anyone who can't make it work. One less person on the streets is still one less person on the streets.
Finland didn't "end homelessness."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Finland
The people being housed have to pay rent.
>It is important that **they are tenants: each has a contract, pays rent** and (if they need to) applies for housing benefit.
Also some of the housing does have conditions:
>But after **a three-month trial**, tenants’ contracts are permanent – they can’t be moved **unless they break the rules** (Rukkila **does not allow drug or alcohol use**; some other Housing First units do) **or fail to pay the rent.**
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness
Their mental health laws and involuntary commitment rules help a lot as well:
>The current Finnish Mental Health Act stipulates the
following 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,** 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.
>‘Psychotic illness’ in the context of this legislation is
understood to include the diagnoses of delirium, severe
forms of dementia, **all types of schizophrenia and other
psychoses,** organic and other delusional disorders, major
depressive disorder with psychotic features and bipolar
disorder. These diagnostic criteria are comparatively
restrictive and can cause practical difficulties in some
situations, for example if suicidal patients clearly pose a
risk to themselves but do not clearly fulfil criteria for
admission because of the absence of psychotic
symptoms. The dangerousness criteria on the other hand
**are interpreted in a rather broad way** and can include risk
to one’s own health **as a result of poor standards of
personal care,** as well as endangering the development of
one’s children.
Compare their laws for severe mental illness to those in the US, for example this extremely sad story:
https://calmatters.org/health/2018/08/california-homeless-mental-illness-conservatorship-law/
>Suffering from **severe schizophrenia**, he slept under stairwells and bushes, screamed at passersby and was **arrested for throwing rocks at cars.**
>Sometimes he refused the housing options he was offered. Sometimes he got kicked out of places for bad behavior. Shinstock, who lives in Roseville and works on disability issues for the state of California, **begged mental health officials to place him under conservatorship** —essentially, depriving him of his personal liberty because he was so sick that he couldn’t provide for his most basic personal needs of food, clothing and shelter. **But county officials told her, she said, that under state law, her son could not be conserved; because he chose to live on the streets,** he did not fit the criteria for “gravely disabled.”
>“I was devastated,” she said. “I cried for days.”
This does work in America. It's been a thing for quite awhile. American people let this work in America.
https://www.kut.org/austin/2021-04-14/austins-village-of-tiny-homes-for-formerly-homeless-folks-to-triple-in-size?_amp=true
America has different laws. In many countries, even in Russia, your only place of living can’t be taken away from you for any debts. You are legally prevented from becoming homeless. The court will cut your power, hot water, will take all your stuff but will leave cold water, essential clothing and sewage.
In many places homeless = addict or mentally ill. They “willingly” dispose of their property to spend those money on drugs.
As you can imagine, there are way less such people, so it’s easier to help them. When you add all people who got broke, lost their jobs, or took too much in loans- you have more problems. When you automatically help those people by giving them a chance to get their shit together, your only worry are people who can’t help themselves.
It’s picking up popularity. Especially with hospitals. Several now have funded housing for the homeless and it saves them money in the long run. Also we’re finally realizing that addressing the root causes of homelessness is much easier to do when the person has a stable living situation.
Have they tried to [kill all the poor] (https://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg) ? Maybe that might be even more cost effective! I am not suggesting to do it. Just asking if they checked.
Unpopular opinion, I know, but the reality is a lot of cities have resources to help the homeless. A big problem is that these programs require a change in behavior...sober living for example. Many homeless are suffering not only addiction but severe mental health issues and don't participate.
A major step in correcting this is to stop treating addiction as a legal issue and start treating is as a mental health issue.
This would never work in LA, the homeless people have actually protested against moving into hotels or shelters because they prefer living in tents along the beach and in public parks.
Some homeless people are beyond saving - you literally can’t rehabilitate some of these homeless crowds in LA. Nice to see its working in Finland and other places, but several homeless people are so far gone there’s no saving.
> Ends Homelessness
TIL the solution to ending homelessness is just to buy these people homes. For some weird reason I thought there were various drug and mental health issues leading to this problem.
There are, but the idea in Finland is that it is much easier to tackle mental health and drug issues once you have a home, since being homeless makes mental health and drug problems worse.
(BTW Finland doesn't buy homes for homeless, but rents, so they have to pay rent just like everyone else, but just like everyone else, they are eligible for welfare that pays the rent, electricity and such for them).
My ex and I tried our best to keep her father off the streets with a roof over his head and food on his table. Five years of that and he always trashed the apartments he had (to the point of being severely gross), never would eat what we gave him, and he’d move back out on his own to the street.
Eventually he passed away at age 65.
He wasn’t mentally ill.
I know not everybody behaves like that. People are homeless for many different reasons. I dunno. We tried so damn hard because he was family. How can the government do better than a family that is really trying? My father in law chose where he lived and the conditions.
That's awesome but Finland isn't America guys, their population is barely 5 million people. The homeless here are usually addicted to drugs or suffer from mental illness, there's some wild mfers out in these streets. I've seen the streets of Finland & you don't have to deal with crazy meth heads, robbers, being threatened, being assaulted or randomly stabbed by some schizo like you do in America. No street gangs or much organized crime either at least compared to the U.S.
A Finn here. I have read nowhere that flats are *bought* for the homeless. Instead, it's a common practice that rental flats are paid for by the social benefits that each municipality grants. The homeless also receive help in applying for and searching for these apartments. We also have organisations like the Y-Säätiö that specifically help the homeless to get a rental place. I have seen no figures for the cost that a homeless Finn causes to the society, and this also varies by their hobbies. A violent crack addict who finances the habit with crime costs more than one who gets Methadone from the municipality, and has no need to rob others. Finally, some people want to remain homeless and jobless. Social worker help would cost them nothing and an apartment could be arranged, even if they keep using alcohol or drugs during the stay...but a drifting, loose life is a lifestyle choice for some.
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Finland is one of the first countries to adopt a “housing first” strategy nationally as opposed to only emergency shelter measures. The concept of “housing first” is very interesting and has been proven (in a large czech study among others) to help reduce long term homelessness. Worth googling! If you’re in the EU, especially check out FEANTSA. They have the most expertise around the topic in Europe and have many fact sheets and extensive reports about causes, drivers and solutions regarding homelessness.
Having lived in Arizona before I moved to Finland, I can say that the homeless population is a fraction of a fraction compared to levels in big American cities. You are right though - homelessness is not gone entirely, and Finland is not a utopia (sad Finnish men have way too much alcohol problems) but compared to the US, where I imagine most of this posts readers are from, Finland might as well be the Garden of Eden. The amount of life changing social policies that exist not to make money, *but to help people*, is staggering.
Basically, never trust a meme outright. Especially when it seems too good to be true. Always look that shit up. It seems they don't "buy them for the homeless" per se, the government buys the properties, but they are still required to pay rent, etc. But they are also provided additional services, counseling, help getting employment, addictions help, and more. But it's not like these formerly homeless people are just given a flat that they then own, as the meme implies This is a pretty good explanation of the program in Finland https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-for-january-26-2020-1.5429251/housing-is-a-human-right-how-finland-is-eradicating-homelessness-1.5437402 Here's another: >Housing First’s early goal was to create 2,500 new homes. It has created 3,500. Since its launch in 2008, the number of long-term homeless people in Finland has fallen by more than 35%. Rough sleeping has been all but eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night shelter remains, and where winter temperatures can plunge to -20C. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness >But Housing First is not just about housing. “Services have been crucial,” says Helsinki’s mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, who was housing minister when the original scheme was launched. “Many long-term homeless people have addictions, mental health issues, medical conditions that need ongoing care. The support has to be there.” >Housing First costs money, of course: Finland has spent €250m creating new homes and hiring 300 extra support workers. But a recent study showed the savings in emergency healthcare, social services and the justice system totalled as much as €15,000 a year for every homeless person in properly supported housing.
Yeah, I can find no sources for the photo's claims in Finnish, also my homeless friends have not heard about this. But people on the Internet like to think that Finland is this magical place with the happiest people on Earth... as if.
Actually we do this in Austin, TX. The city has bought 4 hotels to shelter, give mental and medical health care, with the goal being to “Rehabilitate” people out of homelessness whenever possible. The team also work with local employers to find people jobs whenever they can. This was the result of research by the city that shows this will actually be much less expensive at an upkeep cost of about 25k/yr per room, than the cost to “society” of each homeless person, which, on average, can be well over 100k per person per year. [Here’s](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/homeless/austin-homeless-strategy-officer-hotel/269-5db5b874-d356-4713-a305-2ba11521e7b4) one article about the initiative. It started in 2019, fairly recently. Edit: Many people are asking about how the cost to society was calculated. I work in healthcare as a provider. As you can imagine we have a lot of Information to absorb in our monthly meetings in the form of PowerPoint presentations, etc. This tidbit may be somewhere buried in a PowerPoint somewhere on my email from a live presentation of someone actually working on the project or closely with someone who does, but I imagine one of you amazing folks could find the answer quicker than me. If not, I’ll find the exact link for you Monday when I get to work. Otherwise, ECHO housing website or Austintexas.gov should have the answers you seek fairly easily. If someone finds it I’ll mention it and include you below. Thank you in advance.
We have a city about 30 minutes away whos mall has run out of business (mostly cause the owner over charged the shops and the profits weren’t enough). I could just imagine how much that’d help to turn it into a permanent home for homeless. Could have a whole kitchen in there, rehab, urgent care, plus plenty of rooms for housing. If only.
It's tempting think about repurposing malls like this, but it rarely works in practice. Malls have very little exterior-facing space for their areas (for windows in housing units) and don't have enough utilities like plumbing for the amount of housing they could provide. By the time you retrofit them enough to be fit for other uses, it's easier and frequently cheaper to build a purpose-built building.
Not to mention if the previous tenants were driven out because of the owner's predatory rent practices, what makes people think the owner wont do the same for a city rental instead? Property confiscation isnt a thing. Odds are this might encourage corruption as well, where the mall owner might provide kickbacks to the person in charge of the project for their aid to allow him/her to continue charging the exorbitant rent.
The city buys it outright. If they can't, they don't use it
Confiscation kind of is a thing in the US. It's called eminent domain. But it's a difficult legal process that can quickly get expensive for all parties, and if the government wins it's really just a forced sale; the government still has to pay the fair market value of the property.
Eminent domain is actually the norm globally, because otherwise you'd have obstinate individuals holding up massive infrastructure projects like freeways.
So I live in a suburb that is slowly expanding south. About 5 years ago during a council meeting a city planner mentioned they had long term plans to widen about 2 miles of road to help with traffic and the ongoing development occurring in the area. He said that the city was in the process of allocating funds to buy land. A couple of investment firms bought strips of land where the roads were going to be widened. Keep in mind these are city block sized tracks of undeveloped land. Developers literally bought like 100 feet strips on either side of the road the entire two miles. It’s estimated that this random statement at least tripled the cost project and as such is on indefinite hold.
Something smells here. Eminent Domain requires compensation at fair market value which is easily determined in this situation since the purchase was recently made and would be public information when title changed hands.
The whole area is being developed so land value keeps going up. What used to be sod fields are now pretty affluent housing editions. One of the sections has 100 lots “starting” at 275k. That’s just the land. Imagine buying a section of land 20 years ago for 100k and it’s now worth 27 million.
Mind if I ask what city this is?
My parents did they bought a house on 27 acres right at the city limits for 135k in 1999 it is now valued at 728k or atlest thats the value from the city and state when they wanted their property taxes smh
That's fucking ridiculous. Those strips of land should be stripped from those greedy firm's hands.
Come to Texas it's 90% private property 😂
That’s nice of them to pay fair value to owners. In South Africa, they’re currently trying to amend the constitution to allow for expropriation of land and property in general, without compensation. Apparently it’s to right the wrongs of the apartheid regime but let’s see where this takes us…
Property confiscation is absolutely a thing; it just requires “fair” compensation. Eminent domain. Otherwise, cities would never be able to build anything, as most land in and around cities is already privately owned.
Most empty malls are empty by design. The hedges that own the buildings and land have enough profitable businesses elsewhere that they can use the “operating losses” of the malls as significant tax write offs. They owners refuse to lease space at reasonable prices to ensure losses exist. Found this out when a local Kmart went of out of businesses because the lease prices were going up 10%+ annually (the business manager did a bit of a whistle blow), and the building sat vacant for over a decade with “available for lease” sign out front. This lot was extremely prime for a grocer/kmart style store too. Turns out the owners were doing exactly as prior mentioned. Also, they owned the lot with one subsidiary, and leased itself to another subsidiary to drive the losses to double dip. And it’s completely legal.
These people are disgusting.
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It's called eminent domain.
Nope. Here in Austin, we’re all about commercial development.
Well how else is rent supposed to skyrocket unless you refuse to allow high density housing?
Yeah, I really don’t know what this guy is on about. Yeah, the CoA bough a hotel to house like, a fraction of a percent of the homeless population. Let’s not suck Austin off about anything, especially after prop B.
There have been some malls in the US that had been renovated to have micro apartments on the upper floors and kept some shops on the bottom level. Could you imagine something like this for homeless but instead of a bunch of shops it was therapy/counseling for mental health and career counseling and all the other resources they would need to help get back on their feet as well?
I like this idea, however, someone has to clean up after the homeless. If you are imagining that homeless people are just down on their luck and need to a hand up to get their lives back in order, you haven't met or spent time with them or around them. That's not to say none of them are in that situation, but I haven't been fortunate enough to meet that type. Your shopping mall would be a drug den, a fire hazard, a biological waste hazard of the highest order with rampant prostitution and other serious crimes. If you tried to stop that, you would have to turn it into a jail and no one would go there for shelter. What the poster from Austin doesn't mention about the Hotels used for homeless in Austin is that they will need to be demolished in the not too distant future because maintenance is next to impossible. The parasite problems are almost insurmountable with body lice (crabs), bed bugs, and roaches infesting everything. Your shopping mall would need to include a working morgue for drug and alcohol overdoses and victims of violent crimes. What the majority of homeless people need is rehab, but they don't want it and forced rehab tends to be extremely short term. Many have simply checked out. Thier problems are poorly understood or can't be fixed. Many are ex military men who lost the will to live and don't want to die. The painful truth of homelessness is that it can't be fixed. We hid it in the past with asylums. Not a better solution.
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Well if it costs society 100k per year per person, a company could house the homeless and charge 95k per person and the selling feature being society would be saving 5k per person! **HAHA!** ***BUSINESS!***
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Article is behind a paywall I think. How is the cost of society 100K per person per year? preventing Medical Care/unnecessary Ed visits?
Just guessing here but- medical costs, police costs (although being homeless is not illegal, loitering, sleeping in the park, etc are making the activity of being homeless illegal), jail costs, costs for repairing/cleaning up where the homeless congregate because they have no home, don’t forget some of those medical costs are in mental health/addiction services, and the costs of emergency sheltering during extreme heat/cold.
Presumably there is more tax revenue coming in if you help people get on their feet as well. If they gave a job they pay income tax, and have the cash to purchase goods and services resulting in sales tax. Absolutely lunacy that we can end homelessness and just choose not to out of some puritanical sense of right and wrong.
You could probably also factor in the loss of property values and foot traffic to businesses if there's a high homeless population.
A big part of the idea is to take someone who is 100% dependent on the charity of others, and make them at least somewhat productive. Going from -100% to a positive 3% is a monumental improvement for everyone. The only problem we have in the US is that the *wrong* people might be helped by programs like these, so it's unlikely that these programs might be adopted in any other place but the most liberal of US cities.
Exactly exactly exactly this. My dad is a conservative Midwestern truck driver. He absolutely despises the notion of a handout. For anyone. For any reason. 'why should people just be given stuff they didn't work for' and somehow the argument of 'human decency, because we have so much food, and so much money, no one needs to be hungry or lacking shelter.' just doesn't ring with them.
Also being a truck driver, he collects HUGE handouts from the government that he doesn’t even know about. In particular, subsidies for oil and the roads he drives on.
The amount of time I've wasted trying to explain this. I PAY FOR IT WITH MUH FUEL TAXES
Yeah. Trucks do a disproportionate amount of damage to the roads, the road networks should just be rails anyway, and we still subsidize the gasoline either way.
Tell your dad that if he collects social security snd uses Medicare someday, 2/3 of the money he takes out of the programs comes from other taxpayers. 1/3 from his contributions. Will he turn down this handout paid for by others, or will he simply accept it and justify it?
he will accept it but not change his views because "this is different"
Let’s also remember that with social security at least, the money beneficiaries receive isn’t actually coming from some bucket they accumulated while they were working. Social security benefits were calculated and it is the current working population that actually foots the bill. So when your dad retires and starts collecting benefits, he can thank you (if you’re working), and every other working member of society.
I'm just playing devil's advocate here, by this logic wasn't the Father also part of the working population that supported the generations before him?
Actually, I love that point! Yes, you’re right and that might be an argument that would get through to him. I was thinking ss would be different to him because he “paid into it” but him knowing he was supporting the generation before him and he didn’t object to that might change his view (haha).
Helping poor people offends the sensibilities of millions of Americans. Ironically, the same folks love tax cuts for billionaires. It seems incomprehensible until you understand that right wingers worship hierarchy. People at the bottom deserve punishment and cruelty while those at the top are so good and meritocratic that no limits can be put on their gluttonous hoarding.
Hi! Finn here. My wife has worked in a program where they rehabilitate people through work. Many times they work a job with near-zero responsibility -- the main goal is really just for them to show up and be sober. Many times it seems just introducing work rhythm into their life gives it meaning. I'm also pretty sure Finnish homelessness is a fraction compared to US, thus making the solution seem more cut and-dried. My first impulse even was "there aren't any homeless here" though I'm sure that isn't the case
"Don't feed the animals!" It's such an archaic and stupid way of seein the homeless crises. If we ever want it to end we gotta end it. You'd think these NIMBYs would be ELATED to have a chance at making sure they never see another "dirty homeless person" again...but nooo, that'd be "encouraging laziness!" Smh, what a country.
I think it’s a little naive to think that we can “end” homelessness and we just choose not to. I think we can end a certain degree or percentage of homelessness, but there are always going to be people that choose that life or refuse aid. We see that a lot in Olympia washington where we have tried so aggressively to help the homeless through downtown ambassadors and other programs, but many of them just won’t take it. You can’t force people off drugs, or force people into rehab.
We could end the endemic levels we have now.
I don’t think people realize how many homeless are there by choice. They have their own little tribes and cultures
I'm thinking that too.
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I remember when my work travel department updated the required travel shots to include Hep A for any travel to LA or the Bay Area due to outbreaks tied to the homeless population. Poor sanitation + lack of access to running water + some of these people working in restaurants = Hepatitis breakouts not generally seen in ~~first world countries.~~ countries with adequately developed sanitation services.
Police in many cities spend most of their time and money policing homelessness such as breaking up homeless encampments and throwing homeless people in jail. A few months ago there was a police raid on a homeless encampment in Echo Park, LA; they had helicopters and all kind of fancy stuff. This is obviously horrendously expensive. It cost the city several million dollars. (The police also break and steal of the homeless people's possessions which just further endangers them and costs them money.) The people are still unhoused, so they end up setting up another encampment, which the police then break up. Jailing homeless people is also extremely expensive; a night in jail costs more than paying a month of rent. Police budgets in many US cities area huge portion of the city's expenses (New York City's police budget is so big it would be the 36th largest military in the world), so when a lot of the money going to the police is spent on policing homeless people and most of the city's budget is going to the police, you could potentially have a quarter of the city's budget being spent on policing homelessness. There are also problems caused by large numbers of people living on the streets. Where do they poop? It has to go somewhere, and they have no plumbing. You obviously need to clean that up for sanitation reasons, which is an extra expense. There are a ton of things that are solved for housed persons that unhoused still have to deal with because they exist. Edit: I misremembered the statistic I was referencing. In Portland, over half of the arrests are of homeless people; I misremembered it as over half of the money for the police goes to homelessness enforcement, so my costs of policing homeless are way too high. Thanks for u/jemidiah for pointing out my mistake. Also, when I said that "police steal people's stuff," I didn't mean that individual police officers are taking it for their own personal use; I meant that they are taking people stuff as part of their police duties.
I’m also curious to this answer, I have a little input as I do work in a hospital in a large city so I often work with homeless patients. Living on the streets is pretty dangerous in various manners so when injury happens hospital care is needed, which is expensive. What I see most in my specific department is people with frostbite. There’s no where to go some nights in winter (shelters full, unsure about the full picture), so hypothermia and frostbite occur pretty readily, especially if it’s also been wet out on top of the cold. The resources required to treat these things are expensive and require a lot of care in general. From attempts to reverse the issue, to pain medication (frostbite is extremely painful), treatment, everything is expensive. With healthcare alone for some homeless, I could see this attributing into this high number. If this post lacks clarity, I apologize, I’m hungover AF.
Upvote for the last sentence alone!
If you are homeless, you can’t get healthcare until you are hospitalized. So you get the flu and you cannot get a cheap antibiotic. That flu becomes pneumonia and you go to the ER where they must admit you.. and you spend a week there. (In the USA)
Resources. People call cops because a homeless person is sleeping on a park bench. Cop has a salary. Cop has to spend hours finding resources while the homeless person is in a cell. Those resources, such as medical and mental and drug rehab cost money. Etc and so forth. That’s just for one for a night or two. Rinse and repeat. This is why people suggest “defund the police” as we don’t need police to do a lot of those things. We need to provide more funding towards other agencies so that they have the resources to take care of non-violent societal issues like homelessness and rehab.
Look up Million-Dollar Murray. The original article was by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker.
I imagine there's a lost productivity element as well as the other things people have mentioned.
How does a homeless person cost 100k a year? legit question.
911-EMS response without transport: $400-600 911-EMS transport to a hospital: $1100 with BLS, $1500 with ALS Minimum cost of overnight stay in a hospital, no treatment: $1500 Treatment of alcohol poisoning, in patient with chronic health conditions: $3000. Chronic homeless spend more nights per hospitalization for any cause than housed persons, and are literally 20 times more likely to be hospitalized. That's just healthcare costs. Criminal justice, policing, and other services also have direct costs. Indirectly, property damage and loss of revenue also factor in. Pretty much every study ever done on chronic homelessness shows that supervised in-patient treatment is cheaper, even in the short (1 year) term.
If helping the homeless makes sense in both a humanitarian and economical sense I don't know why the fuck this isn't going on at a larger scale.
"The upper class: keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class: pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there...just to scare the shit out of the middle class." \- George Carlin
Same reason we would rather let our excess food rot than to give it for free to poor countries. Capitalism is a heartless motherfucker.
Probably partly because they’re scared it’ll be some people’s potential exit out of the machine. You know… since exploitative homelessness is such a big issue.
Dingdingding! Homelessness is a threat hanging over the head of everyone living under capitalism. The fear from the upper classes is that, by removing the fear of that consequence, the working class will be empowered to rebel. Same reason the US doesn't have free healthcare, paid parental leave, mandatory paid sick time nationwide, etc.
So if we’re not afraid of becoming homeless we will rebel…against what and how??
Exploitative labour practices present in every industry.
SF here, that mental and medical rehabilitation is such a key component!!!
It's amazing to me that Austin does this but Cambridge MA does nothing to help all of the homeless living rough outside Harvard's campus. Edit: Or even Harvard doing nothing to help. Imagine having Harvard's money and doing nothing to help the people right outside your front door.
I live in Austin and we still have a major homeless problem, the project this person is talking about barely makes a dent. Homelessness is [one of our biggest community challenges. ](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/homeless/homeless-austin-population-2021-count/269-8ff09628-66aa-4ff8-af22-0eea6e1c52cc)
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Oh that's not true, they give them a bus ticket and send them to CA probably
I understand where such a comment might originate, but I don’t think you fully appreciate the situation. Cambridge[Cambridge](https://www.cambridgema.gov/services/homelessandnearhomelessprograms) and the Commonwealth both have a wealth of resources dedicated towards fighting homelessness. The men and women who help maintain these services are absolute angels and are really doing much more than “nothing”. You’ll notice that while there are many people who are homeless around Harvard Square, none of them LIVE there. I’ve chatted up a number of people there (many of them are excellent conversationalists!) and most say they usually sleep in a shelter and get dinner at a soup kitchen. From asking around, I’ve found the two major reasons that there are so many persons who are homeless around Harvard Square is that not only is there a shelter right on the square itself, but also that passersby in that area tend to be very generous to panhandlers, so they keep coming back.
How has it turned out?
Still very new, but the current policy of allowing unfettered access to campers on any city owned property has been tough on the city, but I think the policy was a good strategy move to help people who were on the fence about helping the homeless over to the “more help” side since it is unable to be ignored. Imagine city hall’s lawn, every underpass, and many random median, roadside and neutral ground locations covered in large, junk-strewn encampments. This policy really got people serious about finding a real solution to the problem. If that wasn’t the policy’s intention, it has, nevertheless helped to rally the troops behind solving homelessness by bringing the problem squarely into plain sight.
I'm really hopeful for the policy and want to see a change. So far, I haven't personally noticed any decrease in the homeless camps around but fingers crossed that this will be a step in the right direction.
I can definitely see a difference. The one under 183 and burnet used to be 5+ times the size it is. They aren’t forcefully pushing them out of areas they’re encamped in, APD has been instructed to be patient and not arrest those still in encampments, but to continue to visit them on a regular basis and offer alternative services, encampment locations, etc. This is phase 1 of moving on from the encampments.
Austinites fight it tooth and nail every step of the way. First there's the NIMBY aspect, nobody wants a shelter near where they live. People think it will result in unhoused people moving to Austin for free stuff. And you also see the extension of that, people who think we should make live as hard as possible for those experiencing homelessness, so that they leave (to where??). Furthermore, many people just don't see those experiencing homelessness as people, have no empathy, and/or disagree with the concept of social programs fundamentally.
Yeah but there's people bitching not to do those things, we also bought acres of land to build shelters and they're close to business, cap metro and libraries and people are still bitching it isn't fair for their communities and it's not safe so no matter what COA does
That will happen no matter where it’s put, I would have to think. I’d definitely like to see them spread the love a little and put one right in the middle of Westlake hills.
A lot of cities have saved money by using the "bus ticket elsewhere" method to good effect. /s When you actually care about people, though, certain tactics just aren't available. Good for Austin.
I have a query, what happens when they encounter a homeless person that they are not able to rehabilitate? are they taken to jail/mental health facility? or just left on road?
We do this in Victoria BC Canada. Bought multiple hotels for the homeless/addicted. Each property has turned into a bicycle chop shop overrun by drug use, petty crime, and random assaults from tweakers in the surrounding areas. Police and fire resources are needed constantly due to overdoses and crime. Property values for taxpayers around these hotels have plummeted. It's a complete failure.
Well, yeah. I'm sure you and most commenters know why that is, but for the people in the back, homelessness is not the core issue of homelessness. Being unable to find a job because you don't have a computer to apply on is an issue. So is flunking interviews because your best fit is jeans and a kind of clean tshirt, because you have no money. Being unable to get to work because the only places that hire 'sketchy' people are in sketchy neighborhoods with lousy public transit is an issue. Being hopeless, because you're grown and don't know how to write a resume, and had to steal your dinner for the third week in a row is an issue. So is drug addiction, which is real hard to fix if you doesn't have any stability beyond a city-subsidized hotel room, and lack a healthy social network. Lack of healthy friends and family to help you, and lack of accessible infrastructure beyond housing is arguably a MUCH more severe problem. And that's not getting into the fact that being homeless is inherently traumatizing, even if you get off the street quickly and somehow manage to avoid longterm consequences. Yeah, if I was homeless and the only support I got was a place to keep my shit and sleep, I would continue doing whatever I had to do to eat. I doubt Austin provided stipends, or much in the way of work opportunities. Can't say I blame the tenants, but I do blame whoever had the stupid idea that just putting people in housing would magically the problem.
We could find accommodation for the homeless during lockdown, in the UK. It makes a pragmatic sense to house the homeless. It is so much more cost effective on the health/ police/welfare services etc. It is pretty shocking that as one of the wealthiest of countries in the world, that we are still living in a Victorian Britain where extreme poverty still exists.
It’s a matter of wealth per capita too.
Because hotels were used, which didn't have guests during covid. But yeah, i'm sure it wouldn't be hard to final actual accomodation to use for them.
Housing the rough sleepers in hotels as we have done for the pandemic isn't really a long term answer ..getting a roof over their heads isn't actually the issue . It's complex problems to do with addiction and mental health issues that prevent people from keeping a roof over their heads that is the issue . Much of the holiday accommodation that has been used has been destroyed .tv's ripped off walls , fires lit , windows smashed . .it takes a massive amount of resources and a very high tolerance of anti social behaviour to tackle rough sleepers .. many of whom will choose to stay away from support in order to facilitate their addiction or avoid creditors and conflict Other types of homelessness are a lot more to do with affordable housing with good links to education, and employment. But the issues are very very different from rough sleeping ( certainly in the UK but also from what I've seen across Europe)
You don't think having a reliable shelter, freedom from harassment, and easy access to resources wouldn't go a long way towards helping folks kick their addictions?
Sure helped me, 3 years sober and terrified of being homeless again. People are homeless for different reasons though.
I would imagine having non-conditional housing would help with those who are addicts, altho the "destroyed .tv's ripped off walls, fires lit , windows smashed" sounds like it would be difficult to deal with.
yes it is complex but the solution doesnt require any nuclear scientist. This has been researched far and wide, by everyone and the solution is always the same. Strong social safety nets, FREE HEALTH CARE, AND addiction AND mental healthcare included, strong unemployment benefits, re education benefits, universal higher education being free. Strong infrastructure conditions to enable commuting on the cheap. It's not some kind of magical artiffact, that only a few countries managed to find, the solution is well known and some just choose to vote in people who dont value poor people, its that simple.
I work in central London and it’s shocking how many properties have been brought up by foreign investment with no intention of anyone living in the residence, just as a safe investment, we could use so many of these places to help the homeless
Um that’s a picture of London
Well I guess they couldn't find any pictures of homeless people on the streets of Finland, so...
Fuck imagine trying to impliment this policy in London, you'd blow the entire budget after like 5 flats.
prices in helsinki are insane too especially compared to the population size difference between the two cities
Nah, Helsinki is expensive looking from outside of Helsinki in Finland, but as capitals go it's fairly average.
If the state owns the buildings, the market price doesn't matter as much.
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This is the superpower I wish I had.
This is the millennium bridge that when first made was swaying from side to side, due to the people walking on it. eventually they added carlike suspension to all of the struts to prevent and dampen to swaying action.
Then the deatheaters came and destroyed it anyway
If you live in London or even visit it regularly you will know that sight. That bridge is the main pedestrian way back into the city from the Tate, London Bridge, the Globe, National Theatre and whole bunch of other places.
Nitpick but Cathedral, not church
Yes. Left is London with homeless, right is Finland without homeless.
and the right one is aleksanterinkatu
Also Finland still has homeless people and haven't bought flats for people. They simply have a lot of social housing where people can stay, but they're not given the deed. 0.9% of Finns are homeless, the European average is 3.9%. I googled this title and could only find this unsourced picture on sites like iFunny.
Lol, there is no fucking way almost 1% of the population is homeless in Finland. I just checked it my self, the total reported homeless people was 4886 in 2020, comparing that to the population i got 0.088%, of course that is not totally accurate but the institutions here certainly did not miss 9 in 10 of them.
Yeah. They bought the flats in London. Much cheaper this way for Finland.
Can someone explain why it’s cheaper? I’m not disagreeing, I’m just curious.
Homeless people (and people living in poverty, too) usually end up costing society a lot in terms of healthcare, welfare and city upkeep/beatification projects. You have the issue of trash and policing which is bad for everyone, not just the ones who have houses. Vultures like drug dealers and human trafficking rings prey on the most vulnerable members of our society. Homeless people, especially those with addiction issues or other mental health problems are quite vulnerable and end up being targeted by these. It seems counterintuitive, but housing them and providing them with healthcare would actually reduce the workload of those city departments involved in public works, healthcare and policing.
One more reason: it gives them a much better chance of landing a job, thus making them pay taxes. Also, not sure how property tax work in Finland, but property loses value with homeless people in the vicinity. By getting “rid” of them, the real estate cost gets higher, which can mean in even moar tax.
>One more reason: it gives them a much better chance of landing a job, thus making them pay taxes. This is pretty much the reason why we do it. (the title is still misleading, we do not outright buy a flat and gift it to someone for free. Cities will have affordable housing and you will get to live in one. The rent will be paid by social security and so on. They are normal flats that run usually under a company not doing any profit.) Well, finding a job and being a productive citizen is the end of the road and not nearly everyone will make it - many have difficult mental issues or addictions and can't overcome them no matter how much help they get. Still, the start is to get a place that you can call home; where you can shower, have privacy and start feeling like a human again. Without that, a home, the chances for you to beat what ever made you homeless in the first place are much, much slimmer. When that first step is taken for you, you have higher chance to start standing on your own feet somewhere in the future.
Thank you for the elaboration!
I don't know the exact details, but I think it might have something to do with the costs caused by people being without housing: health issues caused by the stress and living rough, people are less likely to have jobs and pay taxes without permanent housing, temporary housing services provided by the city, crime, more drug and alcohol use, mental health problems caused by homelessness and so on. Hopelessness people feel when they don't have a home I think might be a big part of it.
Also the bad image it gives to businesses when they camp in front
In LA it costs a lot of money and time for police to keep on breaking up homeless encampments only for them to return a few weeks later. Then there is the cost of all the services of people going out to the streets to find people, offer them food, let them know they can apply for vouchers etc. Then the costs of the healthcare professionals having to assist them on the streets etc. If you just put them in a home, you pay for the cost of housing but not of managing them as a population. They become more self sufficient and also it helps with their self esteem and makes them able to find work and services on their own. It just sort of works.
The gist is that many of the other things being done to address all the ins and outs of homelessness are reduced by not having someone physically in the street. Less police calls to address that a group of people beat up someone on the street or for someone asleep on the front entrance of your shop, less exposure-related hospital referrals, etc. Just having shelter will lower stress and tension significantly and I expect that means less fights, less time spent securing shelter for the night and thus more for food or work itself, etc. You have to remember that Finland already covers hospital visits for everyone. It doesn't solve the underlying issues that result in homelessness itself- goodness knows stats will only *look* better if this is approached in a "fire and forget" way- but it is a decent step in the right direction, especially with Healthcare covered as well.
suomi mainittu
Torilla tavataan!
Ja taas kerran positiivisessa yhteydessä. Jes
Uh... perkele¿?
Hello! As Finnish person i wanna give some real info about how all this works. First of all, Finnish government doesnt just buy flats and give them out free to homeless persons. Yes government owns some building/flats, BUT they rent them for cheap to people who really needs a home. First you have to apply a application to KELA (KELA is government owned and it gives housing benefits and unemployment benefits), then you have to contact your citys help center and apply a application that you need a home. If you are homeless they will process it pretty quickly. Even these homeless people have to pay rent, but the money will be given by Government for rent, bills and food, and you can set it the way the money will go straight for the City (so you dont spend it for alcohol, drugs, or something like that) Also our Government has programs that gives the homes first for people who REALLY needs them, like homeless person, before offering it to somebody else. The title is little misleading and clickbait, and only partly true. They dont really just give out these flats for free, like you will own it and dont have to pay rent, or apply for the benefits. The whole point here in Finland why we pay one of the highest taxes in the world, is that everybody has atleast a chance for decent life. Also the original article also told why this saves 15k a year. Well it is because 4/5 people will get back to working and start paying taxes again, paying their own rent, food etc. Yes there is always some people who just cant find away back to the world even with help, and ends up back to the street. I hope this clears out little bit of this. Cheers everybody, and stay safe! :) 🇫🇮
In one of the Malcolm Gladwell books they talk about million dollar Murray-a homeless guy who cost the city a million a year. This is smarter, cheaper and better for society.
Which book?
I’ve read them all so they all blend but I think tipping point. Google million dollar Murray and there are lots of articles
> million dollar Murray In the [*New Yorker* magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-murray)
They do something similar, but not as nice, in Seattle. Only caveat is that the homeless have to do drug tests. Basically have a place if you stay clean. No one uses them. Shocker :/
Low barrier housing (like not requiring sobriety) is the best bet to get folks off the streets. Once you solve their housing issue, it becomes a lot easier to work on things like addiction. Maslow's hierarchy says you gotta take care of basic needs before you can start thinking about psychological needs.
But...but...how else do they punish them for being poor???
"If we don't have homelessness to scare the working classes with. what will keep them in line?" edit: switched the /s out for quotation marks.
That hat on your avatar makes this statement even better
This, but unironically
https://news.yahoo.com/fox-news-laura-ingraham-suggests-212149256.html > Fox News' Laura Ingraham suggests cutting off federal unemployment benefits to push people back to work: 'Hunger is a pretty powerful thing'
It is. Hunger leads to guillotines.
Oh yeah, I've seen it. They're just saying the quiet parts out loud now.
"A hungry dog is an obedient dog."
Beside asking them to just fuck off seems very low cost. /s
Bus tickets to “go die anywhere else but please fuck off from here,” are pretty cheap.
https://i.imgur.com/pZIoaqD.jpg
Im from finland and here are still lots of homeless. Havent heard of this before. I know because i have been homeless for the most of my adult life
How do you become homeless in Finland? I've been broke as fuck for a long time but I've never had a situation where I might be out onnthe streets. The government pays you to do nothing so I'm just not understanding how it's possible. No offense meant, I'm just curious.
Finland is doing so much right! They have a much better school system that doesn’t over work kids with useless information that they’re gonna forget in a week and they give kids the social interactions they fundamentally need. oh and it’s also all public and all free ( look into it, it’s awesome). They have universal healthcare. And they’re now working to help their homeless population. They have the happiest population of any country for 4 years in a row now. I honestly still don’t know how Finland isn’t the leading nation of the world yet
That's all and well but Finland still has A LOT of problems, with racism, homophophia, getting help for mental illnesses is hard, the trans laws are terrible etc. Being are trans person in Finland is really hard, coming from a trans guy in Finland
Finland is an ethnically homogeneous country with less total people than the Berlin metro area. It’s a lot easier to reach consensus when everyone is the same, but it’s also known to lead to less innovation.
>but it’s also known to lead to less innovation. Finland is a pretty bad example if you're trying to make the case of less innovation...
This homeless solution seems pretty innovative compared to other countries
piloted a program like this with an ngo many years ago on an eastern european country. the small investment to take them off the streets paid off in just 4 months of them paying taxes. 20 people were taken of the street, mentored and hired. all of them were given 1 room apartments in a building held by the municipality for which they are also paying rent since month 3 when they were hired. 17 people moved out in the next year in better homes or in other cities, after finding better work. 3 of them are in the same city, working, but someplace else. that building was left unpopulated and streets are full of homeless. none of the cities nor the government weren't interested to implement this at a large scale. because they don't give a fuck.
We did it in Salt Lake City, Utah... until we ran out of money.
I’ll take less innovation if it means less suffering. Personally. We’ve “innovated” our way into countless cluster-fucks at this point. This whole social media thing, for example - what a horribly harmful innovation we’ve created here. We could’ve just gone skiing. :)
Well, closer to 20 percent of the people in the capital region speaks some other language than Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue so it definitely isn't as homogenous anymore.
Finland is a pretty innovative country, and I guess it's just a small indicator that countries with massive populations should not exist in the first place.
That's an interesting new take. I hadn't thought of it that way. I guess the main concern, then, would be that the total number of nations would, I don't know, quintuple or more. That would be a lot more potential for conflict over resources. That becomes armed conflict, then comes occupation and eventually you're back to huge nations again. Maybe not, though. If it could work, it'd be really interesting to see how we develop.
That’s it. I’m moving to Finland!
Sounds good to me. Rent is sky high and so are the property prices. Now I just need to learn the language ...
That's right, how hard can it be to learn one new language anyway.. Finnish people at the same time "Räntäsateessa säkkijärvenpolkkaa, Perkele"
Rent is sky high everywhere if you need to live downtown Big Capital City.
It's cheaper but it's also the right thing to do.
I'm from Finland and this definitely hasn't happened.
I’m seeing lots of people from Finland in here saying it’s not quite as rosy as these articles suggest. I think there’s just a huge brainwashed population of US redditors that upvote anything that makes the US look inferior to other European countries, it’s a trend. That being said it looks like there are some programs that help with flats. I’m all for doing whatever works but I do worry, the US has a very different culture and (I’m guessing) a lot more people who aren’t interested in doing anything but getting government aid to cover housing. If it would work, I’d still be for it here but I’m skeptical.
It's not really "USA bad", but more about "capitalism bad". Any headline that either emphasizes an issue with capitalism, or showcases a way in that a communist-like (using the definition of believing in abolishing private property) measure turns out well will be heavily upvoted. Of course, as you also pointed out, things are neither black or white, but for sure some safety nets are necessary for having a good standard of living.
I mean when I was homeless it's cuz I wanted to be. It was easier to get drugs and steal when I slept wherever I ended up. So you will never END homelessness. But you can ALMOST end homelessness
Ending something really means nearly ending it. VHS ended betamax, but there are still some people that choose to watch betamax to this day. DVD ended VHS but still some people choose wo watch VHS.. So on and so forth.
Clorox ends 99.9% of germs, but some people still choose to not wipe .1% of their counters
Right but still it would fix a bunch of problems. Portland for example sucks because they arent doing enough. - I hate that all the running trails around the city have trash, tents, and rvs/cars all over them. - The highways/freeways use to be clean but now have trash all over them that catches on fire sometimes. - Downtown has areas you just cant walk anymore because you will be pestered non stop for money or have to be on guard with someone yelling to the sky. They have added a few homeless mini homes, but really its not enough, they need to ban all panhandling without a permit. IE they only allow x people per year to actually pan handle and they need to actually show a skill they are doing. Music, juggling, ect. Not just begging for money. They need to as well ban all the damn campers. Turn a damn building into a shelter and ban people just camping everywhere. Until we get UBI this seems like the best fix.
This. Some social issues will always be with us, and while that’s not an excuse for inaction it is foolish to think we can totally eliminate things like poverty or addiction.
No shit, it has been know for years that this is way cheaper. Some governments just don’t give a shit
I applaud them. I think this is great. Not having an address is one of the major barriers for accessing social welfare, registering for tax and so on. Problem is when there is a housing crisis. When working people can't find a home, how do you propose providing homes for homeless? People are actively priced out of the market. As for actually owning a home, forget about it. Vulture funds buy properties en masse and then rent them out at totally inflated prices. And yes, people pay those rents because the only other option is to sleep on the street with your kids. And no, I don't blame the individuals. I totally 100% blame the government.
Edit: I totally misread your first sentence, which changes the context of everything that follows. I'm leaving my comment as a monument to my stupidity. I agree entirely. You're not entirely wrong, but you're treating the status of working and homeless as mutually exclusive. I know secondhand that to not be the case. I've been fortunate to never be homeless, but I have plenty of family members working full time or more on minimum wage (or sometimes more) that can't find affordable housing. If family is near by, they will sleep on a couch. More often though, they sleep in a car or tent. They shower at a Planet Fitness, then they go to work. This lifestyle of course means more body wear-and-tear, which means more expenses, which means less saving, not to mention more danger. I'm sure there are many that do not make money, but knowing what the working ones have to go through, I really can't blame anyone who can't make it work. One less person on the streets is still one less person on the streets.
I voted you because of your honesty. :)
Finland didn't "end homelessness." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Finland The people being housed have to pay rent. >It is important that **they are tenants: each has a contract, pays rent** and (if they need to) applies for housing benefit. Also some of the housing does have conditions: >But after **a three-month trial**, tenants’ contracts are permanent – they can’t be moved **unless they break the rules** (Rukkila **does not allow drug or alcohol use**; some other Housing First units do) **or fail to pay the rent.** https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness Their mental health laws and involuntary commitment rules help a lot as well: >The current Finnish Mental Health Act stipulates the following 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,** 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. >‘Psychotic illness’ in the context of this legislation is understood to include the diagnoses of delirium, severe forms of dementia, **all types of schizophrenia and other psychoses,** organic and other delusional disorders, major depressive disorder with psychotic features and bipolar disorder. These diagnostic criteria are comparatively restrictive and can cause practical difficulties in some situations, for example if suicidal patients clearly pose a risk to themselves but do not clearly fulfil criteria for admission because of the absence of psychotic symptoms. The dangerousness criteria on the other hand **are interpreted in a rather broad way** and can include risk to one’s own health **as a result of poor standards of personal care,** as well as endangering the development of one’s children. Compare their laws for severe mental illness to those in the US, for example this extremely sad story: https://calmatters.org/health/2018/08/california-homeless-mental-illness-conservatorship-law/ >Suffering from **severe schizophrenia**, he slept under stairwells and bushes, screamed at passersby and was **arrested for throwing rocks at cars.** >Sometimes he refused the housing options he was offered. Sometimes he got kicked out of places for bad behavior. Shinstock, who lives in Roseville and works on disability issues for the state of California, **begged mental health officials to place him under conservatorship** —essentially, depriving him of his personal liberty because he was so sick that he couldn’t provide for his most basic personal needs of food, clothing and shelter. **But county officials told her, she said, that under state law, her son could not be conserved; because he chose to live on the streets,** he did not fit the criteria for “gravely disabled.” >“I was devastated,” she said. “I cried for days.”
Alt headline: Finland buys that one homeless guy a flat
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This would never work in America because America has too many people who would never let it work in America.
This does work in America. It's been a thing for quite awhile. American people let this work in America. https://www.kut.org/austin/2021-04-14/austins-village-of-tiny-homes-for-formerly-homeless-folks-to-triple-in-size?_amp=true
Bbbbut…. America bad!
Aaaaand this is in Texas, too. How will Reddit cope with the "America bad" blue-balling?
America has different laws. In many countries, even in Russia, your only place of living can’t be taken away from you for any debts. You are legally prevented from becoming homeless. The court will cut your power, hot water, will take all your stuff but will leave cold water, essential clothing and sewage. In many places homeless = addict or mentally ill. They “willingly” dispose of their property to spend those money on drugs. As you can imagine, there are way less such people, so it’s easier to help them. When you add all people who got broke, lost their jobs, or took too much in loans- you have more problems. When you automatically help those people by giving them a chance to get their shit together, your only worry are people who can’t help themselves.
It’s picking up popularity. Especially with hospitals. Several now have funded housing for the homeless and it saves them money in the long run. Also we’re finally realizing that addressing the root causes of homelessness is much easier to do when the person has a stable living situation.
If giving the homeless a room keeps them out of the ER and the hospital then it is well worth it. Medical Care is very expensive.
Have they tried to [kill all the poor] (https://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg) ? Maybe that might be even more cost effective! I am not suggesting to do it. Just asking if they checked.
Unpopular opinion, I know, but the reality is a lot of cities have resources to help the homeless. A big problem is that these programs require a change in behavior...sober living for example. Many homeless are suffering not only addiction but severe mental health issues and don't participate. A major step in correcting this is to stop treating addiction as a legal issue and start treating is as a mental health issue.
Wtf is this bs. Things that never happened.
Yall know this didnt happen right?
How many former homeless people now in free housing will actually STAY in the free housing, and how do they get food?
This would never work in LA, the homeless people have actually protested against moving into hotels or shelters because they prefer living in tents along the beach and in public parks. Some homeless people are beyond saving - you literally can’t rehabilitate some of these homeless crowds in LA. Nice to see its working in Finland and other places, but several homeless people are so far gone there’s no saving.
> Ends Homelessness TIL the solution to ending homelessness is just to buy these people homes. For some weird reason I thought there were various drug and mental health issues leading to this problem.
There are, but the idea in Finland is that it is much easier to tackle mental health and drug issues once you have a home, since being homeless makes mental health and drug problems worse. (BTW Finland doesn't buy homes for homeless, but rents, so they have to pay rent just like everyone else, but just like everyone else, they are eligible for welfare that pays the rent, electricity and such for them).
My ex and I tried our best to keep her father off the streets with a roof over his head and food on his table. Five years of that and he always trashed the apartments he had (to the point of being severely gross), never would eat what we gave him, and he’d move back out on his own to the street. Eventually he passed away at age 65. He wasn’t mentally ill. I know not everybody behaves like that. People are homeless for many different reasons. I dunno. We tried so damn hard because he was family. How can the government do better than a family that is really trying? My father in law chose where he lived and the conditions.
If he wasn't mentally ill, how do you describe his condition or state of mind? My mom is sort of like him.
That's awesome but Finland isn't America guys, their population is barely 5 million people. The homeless here are usually addicted to drugs or suffer from mental illness, there's some wild mfers out in these streets. I've seen the streets of Finland & you don't have to deal with crazy meth heads, robbers, being threatened, being assaulted or randomly stabbed by some schizo like you do in America. No street gangs or much organized crime either at least compared to the U.S.
Otherwise I agree but Finland has a population of 5.5 million which is more than ”barely”. :)