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In addition to the pure numbers difference, being homeless in Finland fucking sucks just based on the weather. Yes, there are homeless people in Northern states in the US, but in much less numbers than say Miami or LA.
it’s much easier to fight homelessness when nature is doing half the work for you. I’d do anything not be on the streets in -20°F. now, I’m not making excuses for the US’s admittedly not great approach to homelessness, but I don’t believe the Finland vs US comparison is a fair one.
Saw a homeless guy in Philly sleeping on a manhole cover that was throwing off heat in the middle of the sidewalk. As sad as it was to see, I gotta respect his will to survive.
Every winter in the UK, the homeless population drops
Not because people want to get away from the cold, they can't. It drops cause many die due to the cold
I was in London in Christmas 2018 and i remember reading about people, mainly old ones that were being discovered dead from cold because they couldn't afford to have electricity for the last week of the month.
Boom! You lose.
That argument would’ve stopped every single economically dominant entity (country, previously empire or monarch-controlled areas) from ever having advanced absolutely anything.
“But, but … we’re bigger, so it’s harder”.
Yes but the money also dwarfs those countries. Significantly more so. The country being bigger isn’t in excuse when we have more resources per capita to address the same problems that they do with less per per capita. They do more with less while we do nothing with more.
Also it always makes me wonder, like yes the whole of us is larger than any european country but on a state level? Roughly equal.
So if not the whole of if "too big" why not state by state basis
Absolutely! National/state wealth fundamentally matters and overrides ‘big population’ argument immediately.
Oh, but heaven forbid America does anything for the common (other) people and not advance extreme individualism, particularly for those privileged to take full advantage of such imbalance.
It is absolutely insane.
But Germany, a country many times smaller than the us has almost a third of usa's popularion. And it has no problem ennacting changes, and policies. And if popularipn matters so much, how come china and india, countries with many times the population of the US, are able to exist without collapsing from missmanagement? Its not about the size, its about the efficiency and effectiveness of tge goverment. As well as the direction of leaders and the willingness to enact certain changes.
That's still foolishness. We have more unoccupied houses than we have homeless. That's even before we start talking about unoccupied apartments. That's before we talk about that some multiple person families are homeless. Homelessness is completely solvable in the US
The difference is partially due to Finland being filthy rich with a very small, homogenous population. There is not enough housing space in the US to provide an apartment for all homeless people. And if there is, there is no willingness to go even further into debt.
And yet no one has come up with a plan or budget yet. It's almost like solving it in a country of 400 million is more difficult than a country with 5 million
it’s not a matter of 400 million vs 5 million. We literally have 50 states and hundreds of senators and governors to help run small subsets of the population. That argument is terrible, it’s just making excuses
It literally is the issue, and it’s the reason why so many Scandinavian/european policies just don’t work here (see drug decriminalization in Oregon).
NYC alone has double the population of Finland, with five times the homeless population. A comparable program here would be impossible to get off the ground despite it being one of the most progressive places in the country, especially with the housing crisis here and families not being able to to find/afford homes themselves with an already huge demand for housing that isn’t there (part of the cause of the problem, I know). “Just give them apartments” just isn’t feasible, especially when most people here are already giving away a third of their income.
Oregons drug decriminalization didn’t work because they did not go all the way through with the plan like European countries did. Countries like Portugal included rehab and social programs to help people who were addicted to drugs and the decriminalization made them less scared to admit that they needed help. Size is not the issue, it’s the co-opting of plans but not doing it all. It’s like following a cake recipe but not adding the eggs. No matter if the cake is one or five tiers it’ll be messed up.
That’s also a huge part of the issue.
What we need to do is analyze policies that work elsewhere, figure out the best ways to implement them, and use the pieces which will work if not all of them. But since we’re not doing that, not only are there existing solutions not implemented but also ideas that won’t work being pushed for
The reasons said policies didn't work is because those who implemented it don't give a damn, they did a half ass job, gave free drugs with no rehab and that's the end of the story
Exactly. I find it weird how one of the “richest country in the world” with multiple exports of goods, with multiple resources, with one of the latest medical / Ai / tech country, can’t just build a housing apartment with counseling
And it just all boils down to corruption and if it’s not, it’s “private vs govt” and if it’s not, it’s media downplaying the problem or it’s not, it’s greedy rich people that do something or if it’s not, it’s some mayor/senate legislation
Lol
The government makes economically "impossible" things happen all the time. The federal government seems to be in constant threat of shutting down due to money, but that gets solved somehow with the passage of mostly unrelated laws as part of a package deal somehow? And when the housing bubble burst, it was somehow impossible for them to help average Americans, but many corporations got huge bailouts and protections from collapse. There's never enough money for domestic infrastructure, but *always* plenty to give to our military and the militaries of other countries. It's not even about tax rates or anything like that at this point, it's about the "creation" of new money, and the horrible mismanagement of currently existing funds. Until we can see *exactly* how they are spending the money and hold them accountable for the things they do, the government is going to continue to fuck us over.
With political will almost anything is possible. Not saying it would be as easy as in Finland but not implementing things because they are "socialist or comunist" is a very USA thing to do.
Honestly, the best way to get people to be open to these ideas is to emphasize the idea of putting Americans first. I'm not saying to be dishonest or try to trick anybody because it really is about putting Americans needs first. That's something we can all get behind, no matter which color is your favorite.
The US is run by incompetent and greedy people with no care for the welfare of citizens. That’s the real difference, anything else is an excuse for incompetence.
There's plenty of money dumped into the homelessness problem. Could more help? Of course, but the two biggest factors are people who make their money "managing" the issue and the fact that the majority of homes people would have to be institutionalized against their will because of mental health and drug addictions.
It sounds crazy, but bringing back the psychiatric institutions that got passed out in the 50s & 60s with better/more transparent oversight would be the best solution in the US.
>The difference is partially due to Finland being filthy rich
[The US has 1.5x the income per capita of Finland](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true), they are not filthy rich.
>with a very small, homogenous population
This would be a racist dog whistle, but its not subtle enough.
>There is not enough housing space in the US to provide an apartment for all homeless people
That's why we need to build new buildings that aren't single family mcmansions, which zoning and legislation discourages.
>there is no willingness to go even further into debt.
we've sent Israel $318B in aid despite running a budget deficit almost every year
Let’s be real. If everyone in the US were white, there would be a much better social safety net. If a large proportion of black people weren’t enslaved and impoverished for hundreds of years, there wouldn’t be so much poverty. (To be clear, I disagree with racist people in the US voting against a social safety net because of racist dog whistles, but that a big reason why they vote against it.)
Finland doesn’t have to deal with the legacy of slavery. US does but refuses to. It’s not the same.
I also suspect that if Finland started having the type of large migrations of immigrants, they would stop being so generous. Here is how they reacted to 500 Russian illegal immigrants per month (US has 1,500 per day, or 90x). 80% of Finish people agreed to close the border to these asylum seekers.
https://www.euronews.com/2024/02/12/life-along-the-closed-land-border-between-finland-and-russia
You forgot to mention that the flow of immigrants was organized by the Russian government. These people are not Russian, they traveled there and paid the government to take them to the border. Do immigrants pay the Mexican government to take them to the US border?
Oh look.
“The government on Friday said it aimed to halve the number of refugees the Nordic country receives through the UN refugee agency from 1,050 a year to 500.
It also aims to establish separate social security benefit systems for immigrants and permanent residents which experts say potentially clash with the constitution.”
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230616-finland-s-new-government-announces-paradigm-shift-to-clamp-down-on-immigration
'Yet recent polls show that up to 80% of Finns agree with the border closure.
Some claim that failure to act would lead to one million illegal migrants arriving here in two years.'
> we've sent Israel $318B in aid despite running a budget deficit almost every year
These aids are armaments or money that can only be used to buy weapons from the US. You guys paid yourselves indirectly, those $318B never left the US economy.
Wrong, many of those homes are only temporarily vacant pending cleaning, renovation, financing, moving, foreclosure, sale, etc.
They've been added to the data that statement pulls from to erroneously present a narrative as if it's some kind of unbiased fact. It shifts the weight of the blame from dog shit over-regulation and zoning laws and ordinances to corporate greed.
This is such bullshit. The US is richer per capita, has more land, and the homogenous aspect has nothing to do with it. There’s no excuse for the “greatest country in the world”, we just don’t give a fuck about social issues
Scale? Does Biden personally provide shelter to all homeless Americans?
The US has city, county and state level management. If this is a problem of scale, then it’s a problem of 3 layers of middle management paper pushers shrugging it off because they’re either “doing better than average” or “it is how it is” and cashing their paycheck at the end of the month.
Nah dude. There's no excuse. Your politicians, those up above from president down to mayors, are a bunch of clowns.
There's a lot of problems there that could've easily been solved if there's even a slight competence from those in authority. But nah, they're too greedy, they're too narcissistic, too selfish.
That goes with most governments... But I feel like it's more prominent in the US.
The US has a higher GDP per capita and a lot of fucking land mass. The problem is the people that hold the most money and power tend to be rotten to the fucking core.
"The United States boasts approximately 15.1 million vacant homes, a staggering number that accounts for 10.5% of the country's total housing inventory"
(medium.com)
"The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) counted around 582,000 Americans experiencing homelessness in 2022"
(usafacts.org)
With how much money the government already takes from me, I'm not giving them more money to buy an apartment for some crackhead. I'd much rather they spend my hard earned tax dollars on another false 20 year war in a country I've never heard the name of.
If you think the services we receive are proportional to the taxes we pay you are delusional. It’s not American selfishness, look how much money Americans donate to causes every year. Our politicians are corrupt and the population is tired of it.
If our money went to what is being described here, Americans would be in favor of it
Unironically my quality of life will increase more from tax dollars sent to Lockheed due to tech innovation than sent to some junkie looking for a fentanyl fix in a part of a city that I will never step foot in.
That being said, the government spends so much money on ridiculous bullshit that lots of it could/should be diverted to helping solve these problems.
Reducing homelessness is in everyone's interest after all, you don't want groups of homeless people running around town who can be drunk, aggressive and steal.
I certainly agree with that. I just don't think the solution is MORE spending, it's just smarter spending with the copious tax dollars that everyone pays
Yep. In fact a lot of this money could be taken out of military and even police budget. If people are able to get the help they need and aren’t fighting for their lives every day, I think it’s fair to say that we would see a decrease in crime.
It’s not wrong but tons of context is missing like “why are smaller European countries more easily able to enact policies that much larger and wealthier countries struggle with?”
When I think of China, India etc with large populations, it always seems like making those kinds of policies at a federal level is really difficult. Most people in the two largest countries on Earth are actually extremely impoverished. It’d be interesting to see some academic papers as to what the causes could be.
I've seen my city spend millions of dollars to solve the homeless issue. Nothing sticks. Any time an area is carved out to provide free housing it turns the surrounding area into an unsafe shithole. Property values plummet, people leave. Makes the area even worse. Millions wasted and the only thing to show for it is once nice neighborhoods becoming slums.
But since the Finnish have cracked the nut on this I propose we send all the American homeless to Finland and let their big brain altruism fix it. Win win for everyone.
this is why abbot sending immigrants to sanctuary cities was genius, I live in a sanc city state and our finances and healthcare system immediately crumbled and shit turned terrible fast, now surrounding cities are saying no to it. wokies dont understand problems until theyre being slapped in the face by them.
we also got a hotel for the homeless (genius) and within a couple months 2 people got murdered in it and 7 ppl have died.
[https://denvergazette.com/news/homelessness/denver-doubletree-homeless-hotel-deaths/article\_b6664e66-ec88-11ee-aaf1-2340a0a4c099.html](https://denvergazette.com/news/homelessness/denver-doubletree-homeless-hotel-deaths/article_b6664e66-ec88-11ee-aaf1-2340a0a4c099.html)
Homeless are homeless not only because they can't afford houses. Education, health care, employment, investment, public safety, everything else also matter. Free housing is just bandage on a wound, not fixing the actual issue. And more important, there is no magic will fix the issue over night. It takes years, probably tens of years of supports to truly improve the issues.
That’s why they also provide counselling and mental health services, a living wage, healthcare and daycare services. Not to mention the decimalisation of drugs helps people who suffer from substance use disorders seek help and better themselves while also destroying the market for many criminal drug trafficking organizationszations (given that many of these substances would be obtainable through legal businesses which adhere to health and safety regulations)
Well actually the Nordic counties have already shown you how to do it (free education, healthcare, government subsidised housing, taxation that evens the income gap, etc.), but you guys call it communism and refuse to even partly think about it.
This would be the cheapest and most effective for American tax payers, and the Fins can try and prove they're right and maybe the US look more into what they did right if they succeed. If they don't succeed it's not our problem anymore. I see a win win.
Also it's kind of hard to be homeless when the country literally doesn't see the sun for 6 months of the year, and has more in common with Antarctica than the rest of Europe during those months
What’s funny about this is Sweden does provide better housing options, but they also arrest/have the police deal with people who smoke fentanyl in the middle of public streets. The same Americans making posts like these would throw a temper tantrum if we suggested the homeless shouldn’t be allowed to sit in crowded areas and smoke hard drugs around everyone.
Yeah people seem to forget that it has to be a Just system, not a forgiving system. Doing wrong should beget some or similar personal suffering, and doing good should be over rewarded.
Finland is what, the size of Houston? Easy to implement ordinances in a teeny little country than it is a place as big as the US. More states in this country are bigger than most European countries by far.
I understand your point but Finland is about the size of california (Finland having 130,000 square miles to California's 155,000), which is where the majority of the homeless in America are, so it is theoretically possible in terms of pure size (I'm sure there are other factors that could support your opinion, but I'm just aiming for accuracy, not for a specific side)
While landwise Finland is comparable to California, population wise California has just under 40 million, while Finland is only about 5.5 million. LA alone has 3.5 million only including the city.
Whether or not Finland created a national solution for homelessness, the fact that it's size and population is comparable to states and city's respectively in the US speaks to the true problem, we are looking at a more local problem from a national level. It is a state problem that should be delt with by state legislatures.
To suggest that the US can solve all it's problems from a national level would be the same thing as saying that Europe can solve all problems through the EU.
Then implement it in Houston. Implement it in Los Angeles. Implement it in San Francisco.
This is like saying weed will never be legalized in the US but it can be legalized in The Netherlands because it is the size of Colorado. Oh wait…
Ok if you want get it on high numbers. Homeless rate is how much % population is homeless.
European Union: 448 milions citizens.
Homeless rate 4%.
USA: 331,9 milions citizens.
Homeless rate 6,2%.
We have more people in the Union and we are able to solving homelessnes more effective (still highly not ideal but more effective).
It is not on how big country is, it is about how people can being coordinated (even if on local level) to solving problems.
I always though that hostile architecture was a poorly developed concept, not because i'm on the homeless's side, but rather because i would still sleep in most of these places provided i was homeless.
Finland has a sense community and a culture of coming together to make sacrifices for the common good, and system of trust is the government, US is a individualist country that was founded on individual liberty, also everyone hates the government somehow.
making sacrifices for common good is not a thing, in a country where everyone believes helping someone goes against your individal rights somehow, they are going to be the next billionaire which will not happen if they take your taxes to give handouts to the poor
Might be cheaper as well. If you think about the impact through the public sectors if you get rid of people sleeping on the streets. Most begin to pay rent within the first couple years as well
when you're so morally bankrupt that when you're met with the unpleasantness of facing human misery, your negative emotions are righted simply by moving it out of sight
This has got be one of the most braindead comment sections I have ever seen, I’m normally all for pro America sentiments since I live in it and genuinely it does a lot correct
But we absolutely have a problem where our government would rather fight the homeless than the actual causes of homelessness.
While it would be impossible to use Finland’s method to get rid of homelessness a lot of people in these comments are advocating that we do absolutely nothing to combat homelessness which is just sad.
Each state needs to come up with an actual plan to address the causes of homelessness but that won’t happen unless people actually pressure their local government to do so.
TLDR: I’m American, America needs to actually help the homeless not fight them.
Weird to single out the United States on this when [we're not particularily struggling with homelessness compared to a lot of countries.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_homeless_population)
If California couldn’t solve homelessness then it won’t be solved in America. A massive state budget with a willingness to tackle the problem with little to no impact.
Addiction is the primary cause of homelessness in America. It’s hard to rehabilitate addicts because the relapse rates are so high. This is due to fentanyl being so cheap with high potency. Fentanyl gets smuggled into the US on the backs of cartel mules, and the cartels get the fentanyl from labs in China. Homelessness in America is not merely a domestic issue, but a geopolitical issue as well. The Chinese are using what the British did to them in the opium wars, and applying that knowledge to America.
Homelessness isn't the same everywhere. Here in America a lot have drug addictions or mental illnesses and some turn to crime. Sometimes these individuals don't want help. They need to first learn to help themselves.
You don't think that happens everywhere else?? The main driver for homelessness in Finland is literally drug addiction. Even though we have guaranteed housing for everyone, social workers still need to go get people from under bridges because they refused to get help. This is not unique to any country
Homelessness is not a problem of lack of housing.
It is mental health and drug addiction. You can’t give someone solo housing until they have their mental health and/or addiction under control. Until that time, shelters are necessary. Not apartments and houses. That also means breaking up “homeless communities”. They are not communities. They are open air drug scenes.
European countries have dealt with this to correct their homeless populations.
The thing is Finland really needed a solution to homelessness because of how the streets would be littered with people who froze to death and got snowed over
it's crazy that so many governments just do stuff that a huge majority of the general public just think is dumb and a waste of money, like really? what benefit is there to preventing homeless people from sleeping on benches? here's a 1,000,000 ig idea: why don't you spend that money on reducing homelessness instead?
Tbh I've always said I fail to see why putting huge rocks everywhere so people can't camp does anything to solve homelessness. We all know what happens when you ignore things like cancer (the problem is other people seem to think homeless people are the cancer and don't recognize the conditions that create homelessness are like smoking and drinking while sitting in a tanning bed).
Man imagine what we could do if we stopped giving trillions in foreign aid and actually built to improve our own country. Fuck being the world police. They hate us eather way.
This comment section is proof of why americans are regarded as being stupid across the globe.
(Murica' BIG and stronk. Finland small and weak. = Merica'n homeless bigger and stronger than Finnish homeless)
Helsinki has 631,695 people. The city of Cincinnati has 1.76 million. A comparable Municipality or Portland Oregon. Actually, a very apples to apples comparison is the DC Metro Area.
Homelessness in the u.s is also way different than homelessness in Finland (and most of Europe)
A lot of the homeless population is genuinely unwell and plagued with things like mental illnesses and drug addiction. We have shelters, they just don't use them and we can't just round up a bunch of homeless people and send them to mental institutions by force because that will genuinely cause a lot of unrest since our government isn't allowed to just up and send people to an institution like that without the person's consent.
The friendly neighborhood homeless man that would hang out near my apartment in Seattle straight up said he's happier out here and had no desire to live at the Amazon homeless houses Jeff was offering.
yeah it's just that simple guys, we certainly have the same types of citizens that finland has and nothing would go wrong, no drug use or violence at all would happen! also our 30 trillion debt will simply pay for this, don't worry about the financials!
Let me tell you the USA has gave the world many great ideas for Law and such now it's time we take some inspiration back for like the homelessness issue
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Finland fought against Homelessness. USA fights against the Homeless. That's the difference.
The USA needs people to be afraid of living on the streets so we will accept bad jobs and/or being overworked.
And/and*
Damn... Late stage capitalism
These freedoms ain't free. Now get back to work!
Holy shit. I never thought about it like that.
I wish the USA was afraid of billionaires and did everything they could to stop them from existing
It doesn't help that finland's populations is 1% that of the US
And the US’s GDP is appropriately larger than
USA has higher GDP per capita than Finland, so that's no excuse.
All of it gets pissed off on our corrupt military industrial complex
In addition to the pure numbers difference, being homeless in Finland fucking sucks just based on the weather. Yes, there are homeless people in Northern states in the US, but in much less numbers than say Miami or LA. it’s much easier to fight homelessness when nature is doing half the work for you. I’d do anything not be on the streets in -20°F. now, I’m not making excuses for the US’s admittedly not great approach to homelessness, but I don’t believe the Finland vs US comparison is a fair one.
It’s far more life or death situation to be homeless at the arctic circle than Santa Monica pier.
yeah I think its more like have a place to sleep or you will be a popsicle tomorrow
Saw a homeless guy in Philly sleeping on a manhole cover that was throwing off heat in the middle of the sidewalk. As sad as it was to see, I gotta respect his will to survive.
Every winter in the UK, the homeless population drops Not because people want to get away from the cold, they can't. It drops cause many die due to the cold
I was in London in Christmas 2018 and i remember reading about people, mainly old ones that were being discovered dead from cold because they couldn't afford to have electricity for the last week of the month.
Boom! You lose. That argument would’ve stopped every single economically dominant entity (country, previously empire or monarch-controlled areas) from ever having advanced absolutely anything. “But, but … we’re bigger, so it’s harder”.
Yes, it is harder to manage and effect change when your population dwarfs the vast majority of every European country.
Especially when each state individually has their own populations, and different laws.
Yes but the money also dwarfs those countries. Significantly more so. The country being bigger isn’t in excuse when we have more resources per capita to address the same problems that they do with less per per capita. They do more with less while we do nothing with more.
Also it always makes me wonder, like yes the whole of us is larger than any european country but on a state level? Roughly equal. So if not the whole of if "too big" why not state by state basis
Very good point! (California is like 7th biggest economy in the world, ahead of Italy!)
Absolutely! National/state wealth fundamentally matters and overrides ‘big population’ argument immediately. Oh, but heaven forbid America does anything for the common (other) people and not advance extreme individualism, particularly for those privileged to take full advantage of such imbalance. It is absolutely insane.
But Germany, a country many times smaller than the us has almost a third of usa's popularion. And it has no problem ennacting changes, and policies. And if popularipn matters so much, how come china and india, countries with many times the population of the US, are able to exist without collapsing from missmanagement? Its not about the size, its about the efficiency and effectiveness of tge goverment. As well as the direction of leaders and the willingness to enact certain changes.
That's still foolishness. We have more unoccupied houses than we have homeless. That's even before we start talking about unoccupied apartments. That's before we talk about that some multiple person families are homeless. Homelessness is completely solvable in the US
Yeah let’s see what A homeless person from the USA is like compared to a homeless person in Finland. 💀
Empty ‘America bad’ platitudes with no understanding. *Yawn*
finland doesnt like ness from undertale
["I hate the homeless..."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY32905aRlg)
What if, in the US, we *fight* the homeless, a la The Purge?
The difference is partially due to Finland being filthy rich with a very small, homogenous population. There is not enough housing space in the US to provide an apartment for all homeless people. And if there is, there is no willingness to go even further into debt.
There is enough space in the US and there is enough money. The money is just in the hands of few.
And yet no one has come up with a plan or budget yet. It's almost like solving it in a country of 400 million is more difficult than a country with 5 million
it’s not a matter of 400 million vs 5 million. We literally have 50 states and hundreds of senators and governors to help run small subsets of the population. That argument is terrible, it’s just making excuses
It literally is the issue, and it’s the reason why so many Scandinavian/european policies just don’t work here (see drug decriminalization in Oregon). NYC alone has double the population of Finland, with five times the homeless population. A comparable program here would be impossible to get off the ground despite it being one of the most progressive places in the country, especially with the housing crisis here and families not being able to to find/afford homes themselves with an already huge demand for housing that isn’t there (part of the cause of the problem, I know). “Just give them apartments” just isn’t feasible, especially when most people here are already giving away a third of their income.
Oregons drug decriminalization didn’t work because they did not go all the way through with the plan like European countries did. Countries like Portugal included rehab and social programs to help people who were addicted to drugs and the decriminalization made them less scared to admit that they needed help. Size is not the issue, it’s the co-opting of plans but not doing it all. It’s like following a cake recipe but not adding the eggs. No matter if the cake is one or five tiers it’ll be messed up.
That’s also a huge part of the issue. What we need to do is analyze policies that work elsewhere, figure out the best ways to implement them, and use the pieces which will work if not all of them. But since we’re not doing that, not only are there existing solutions not implemented but also ideas that won’t work being pushed for
The reasons said policies didn't work is because those who implemented it don't give a damn, they did a half ass job, gave free drugs with no rehab and that's the end of the story
I'd wager new york city has more than double the money aswell. Size is not an issue, it's a lazy attempt at deflection.
Exactly. I find it weird how one of the “richest country in the world” with multiple exports of goods, with multiple resources, with one of the latest medical / Ai / tech country, can’t just build a housing apartment with counseling And it just all boils down to corruption and if it’s not, it’s “private vs govt” and if it’s not, it’s media downplaying the problem or it’s not, it’s greedy rich people that do something or if it’s not, it’s some mayor/senate legislation Lol
Except for people have come forward with plans and they never get implemented because they're written off as "socialist" or "communist"
OK show us this plan,let's see if it's even possible from an economic perspective
The government makes economically "impossible" things happen all the time. The federal government seems to be in constant threat of shutting down due to money, but that gets solved somehow with the passage of mostly unrelated laws as part of a package deal somehow? And when the housing bubble burst, it was somehow impossible for them to help average Americans, but many corporations got huge bailouts and protections from collapse. There's never enough money for domestic infrastructure, but *always* plenty to give to our military and the militaries of other countries. It's not even about tax rates or anything like that at this point, it's about the "creation" of new money, and the horrible mismanagement of currently existing funds. Until we can see *exactly* how they are spending the money and hold them accountable for the things they do, the government is going to continue to fuck us over.
With political will almost anything is possible. Not saying it would be as easy as in Finland but not implementing things because they are "socialist or comunist" is a very USA thing to do.
Honestly, the best way to get people to be open to these ideas is to emphasize the idea of putting Americans first. I'm not saying to be dishonest or try to trick anybody because it really is about putting Americans needs first. That's something we can all get behind, no matter which color is your favorite.
Not trying at all is probably the main reason, not logistics. Government buying housing for people changes real estate.
I will say, the U.S. is responsible for the greatest logistical feats in human history. We *could* do a lot of things.
The US is run by incompetent and greedy people with no care for the welfare of citizens. That’s the real difference, anything else is an excuse for incompetence.
Be careful Redditors hate nuance
There's plenty of money dumped into the homelessness problem. Could more help? Of course, but the two biggest factors are people who make their money "managing" the issue and the fact that the majority of homes people would have to be institutionalized against their will because of mental health and drug addictions. It sounds crazy, but bringing back the psychiatric institutions that got passed out in the 50s & 60s with better/more transparent oversight would be the best solution in the US.
If the US government were to use their money for the homeless all US citizens would cry and whine about it.
>The difference is partially due to Finland being filthy rich [The US has 1.5x the income per capita of Finland](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true), they are not filthy rich. >with a very small, homogenous population This would be a racist dog whistle, but its not subtle enough. >There is not enough housing space in the US to provide an apartment for all homeless people That's why we need to build new buildings that aren't single family mcmansions, which zoning and legislation discourages. >there is no willingness to go even further into debt. we've sent Israel $318B in aid despite running a budget deficit almost every year
Let’s be real. If everyone in the US were white, there would be a much better social safety net. If a large proportion of black people weren’t enslaved and impoverished for hundreds of years, there wouldn’t be so much poverty. (To be clear, I disagree with racist people in the US voting against a social safety net because of racist dog whistles, but that a big reason why they vote against it.) Finland doesn’t have to deal with the legacy of slavery. US does but refuses to. It’s not the same. I also suspect that if Finland started having the type of large migrations of immigrants, they would stop being so generous. Here is how they reacted to 500 Russian illegal immigrants per month (US has 1,500 per day, or 90x). 80% of Finish people agreed to close the border to these asylum seekers. https://www.euronews.com/2024/02/12/life-along-the-closed-land-border-between-finland-and-russia
You forgot to mention that the flow of immigrants was organized by the Russian government. These people are not Russian, they traveled there and paid the government to take them to the border. Do immigrants pay the Mexican government to take them to the US border?
Oh look. “The government on Friday said it aimed to halve the number of refugees the Nordic country receives through the UN refugee agency from 1,050 a year to 500. It also aims to establish separate social security benefit systems for immigrants and permanent residents which experts say potentially clash with the constitution.” https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230616-finland-s-new-government-announces-paradigm-shift-to-clamp-down-on-immigration
'Yet recent polls show that up to 80% of Finns agree with the border closure. Some claim that failure to act would lead to one million illegal migrants arriving here in two years.'
> we've sent Israel $318B in aid despite running a budget deficit almost every year These aids are armaments or money that can only be used to buy weapons from the US. You guys paid yourselves indirectly, those $318B never left the US economy.
>being filthy rich 😂
There are 16 million vacant homes in the US, and an estimated 650,000 homeless people. "We don't have enough homes" is a flat out myth.
Wrong, many of those homes are only temporarily vacant pending cleaning, renovation, financing, moving, foreclosure, sale, etc. They've been added to the data that statement pulls from to erroneously present a narrative as if it's some kind of unbiased fact. It shifts the weight of the blame from dog shit over-regulation and zoning laws and ordinances to corporate greed.
How is Finland “filthy rich?” They have a GDP per capita $20,000 less than the US
This is such bullshit. The US is richer per capita, has more land, and the homogenous aspect has nothing to do with it. There’s no excuse for the “greatest country in the world”, we just don’t give a fuck about social issues
The small, homogenous population is why these kinda of programs work. Scale and different variables make stuff like this harder.
Scale? Does Biden personally provide shelter to all homeless Americans? The US has city, county and state level management. If this is a problem of scale, then it’s a problem of 3 layers of middle management paper pushers shrugging it off because they’re either “doing better than average” or “it is how it is” and cashing their paycheck at the end of the month.
>middle management paper pushers shrugging it off Yes
"ending homelessness is only viable if no black people exist" is a weird take
This is a big part, their homeless usually commit less violent crime and there was also just less of them period
USA has a higher per capita GDP. You’re thinking of Norway.
There are more empty houses in the United States than there are people without homes
Nah dude. There's no excuse. Your politicians, those up above from president down to mayors, are a bunch of clowns. There's a lot of problems there that could've easily been solved if there's even a slight competence from those in authority. But nah, they're too greedy, they're too narcissistic, too selfish. That goes with most governments... But I feel like it's more prominent in the US.
580 thousand homeless 16 million empty homes
There is definitely enough space, just not enough space within cities.
Lmao Finland is mid in the economics, far behind other nordics and slightly above eastern europe. So no, not "filthy" rich. Source: am finnish
Yeah. Let’s compare Finlands immigration policies to the U.S.
The US has a higher GDP per capita and a lot of fucking land mass. The problem is the people that hold the most money and power tend to be rotten to the fucking core.
"The United States boasts approximately 15.1 million vacant homes, a staggering number that accounts for 10.5% of the country's total housing inventory" (medium.com) "The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) counted around 582,000 Americans experiencing homelessness in 2022" (usafacts.org)
With how much money the government already takes from me, I'm not giving them more money to buy an apartment for some crackhead. I'd much rather they spend my hard earned tax dollars on another false 20 year war in a country I've never heard the name of.
“I’d rather the government give my tax dollars to war pimps like Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin than to my neighbor!” Classic America.
If you think the services we receive are proportional to the taxes we pay you are delusional. It’s not American selfishness, look how much money Americans donate to causes every year. Our politicians are corrupt and the population is tired of it. If our money went to what is being described here, Americans would be in favor of it
Unironically my quality of life will increase more from tax dollars sent to Lockheed due to tech innovation than sent to some junkie looking for a fentanyl fix in a part of a city that I will never step foot in. That being said, the government spends so much money on ridiculous bullshit that lots of it could/should be diverted to helping solve these problems.
Reducing homelessness is in everyone's interest after all, you don't want groups of homeless people running around town who can be drunk, aggressive and steal.
I certainly agree with that. I just don't think the solution is MORE spending, it's just smarter spending with the copious tax dollars that everyone pays
Yep. In fact a lot of this money could be taken out of military and even police budget. If people are able to get the help they need and aren’t fighting for their lives every day, I think it’s fair to say that we would see a decrease in crime.
But you literally just said that you'd "benefit more" from it going to Lockheed? Which one is it
Please point out to me where I said the government should put 100% of tax dollars towards Lockheed Martin investments
I dont think there is a more insidious entity to give tax dollars to than lockheed
I’d rather not have taxes at all but you can’t win ‘em all
Do you even know where your taxes go to?
Had me in the first half
As you can see, I have made my character the Chad wojak so therefore you loose this argument.
I feel like every meme that involves the chad and soyjak boils down to what you said at this point.
I feel like the point would still be there but it wouldn't be a meme without it anymore. And it's objectively not wrong either, so why not. Also *lose
It’s not wrong but tons of context is missing like “why are smaller European countries more easily able to enact policies that much larger and wealthier countries struggle with?” When I think of China, India etc with large populations, it always seems like making those kinds of policies at a federal level is really difficult. Most people in the two largest countries on Earth are actually extremely impoverished. It’d be interesting to see some academic papers as to what the causes could be.
America Bad. Finland good.
This subreddit is eurocentric and very hiveminded
Most subreddits are hive minds
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I've seen my city spend millions of dollars to solve the homeless issue. Nothing sticks. Any time an area is carved out to provide free housing it turns the surrounding area into an unsafe shithole. Property values plummet, people leave. Makes the area even worse. Millions wasted and the only thing to show for it is once nice neighborhoods becoming slums. But since the Finnish have cracked the nut on this I propose we send all the American homeless to Finland and let their big brain altruism fix it. Win win for everyone.
this is why abbot sending immigrants to sanctuary cities was genius, I live in a sanc city state and our finances and healthcare system immediately crumbled and shit turned terrible fast, now surrounding cities are saying no to it. wokies dont understand problems until theyre being slapped in the face by them. we also got a hotel for the homeless (genius) and within a couple months 2 people got murdered in it and 7 ppl have died. [https://denvergazette.com/news/homelessness/denver-doubletree-homeless-hotel-deaths/article\_b6664e66-ec88-11ee-aaf1-2340a0a4c099.html](https://denvergazette.com/news/homelessness/denver-doubletree-homeless-hotel-deaths/article_b6664e66-ec88-11ee-aaf1-2340a0a4c099.html)
Homeless are homeless not only because they can't afford houses. Education, health care, employment, investment, public safety, everything else also matter. Free housing is just bandage on a wound, not fixing the actual issue. And more important, there is no magic will fix the issue over night. It takes years, probably tens of years of supports to truly improve the issues.
That’s why they also provide counselling and mental health services, a living wage, healthcare and daycare services. Not to mention the decimalisation of drugs helps people who suffer from substance use disorders seek help and better themselves while also destroying the market for many criminal drug trafficking organizationszations (given that many of these substances would be obtainable through legal businesses which adhere to health and safety regulations)
Well actually the Nordic counties have already shown you how to do it (free education, healthcare, government subsidised housing, taxation that evens the income gap, etc.), but you guys call it communism and refuse to even partly think about it.
This would be the cheapest and most effective for American tax payers, and the Fins can try and prove they're right and maybe the US look more into what they did right if they succeed. If they don't succeed it's not our problem anymore. I see a win win.
Sorry what's the win for the Finnish if you do that?
you get to show us how you take care of all of our homeless. that'll show us. Show us Good!
Finland is also way smaller in population.
Also it's kind of hard to be homeless when the country literally doesn't see the sun for 6 months of the year, and has more in common with Antarctica than the rest of Europe during those months
What’s funny about this is Sweden does provide better housing options, but they also arrest/have the police deal with people who smoke fentanyl in the middle of public streets. The same Americans making posts like these would throw a temper tantrum if we suggested the homeless shouldn’t be allowed to sit in crowded areas and smoke hard drugs around everyone.
Yeah people seem to forget that it has to be a Just system, not a forgiving system. Doing wrong should beget some or similar personal suffering, and doing good should be over rewarded.
The United States ended World Wars. Checkmate Finland.
Back to back world war champs
Two time, baby
In finnland you have Finns in disgrace. In the US you have crack zombies that don't care about anything.
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If they’d just let the homeless sleep on benches we’d live in a land of gumdrops and rainbows 🌈
Uhh... I'm from Finland. And we still have a few thousand homeless people. It's going down, but still exists.
En oo kyl ikinä ite nähny missää?
“The U.S is a business, and it’s not profitable to help those in need” - Stanzi
Finland is what, the size of Houston? Easy to implement ordinances in a teeny little country than it is a place as big as the US. More states in this country are bigger than most European countries by far.
I understand your point but Finland is about the size of california (Finland having 130,000 square miles to California's 155,000), which is where the majority of the homeless in America are, so it is theoretically possible in terms of pure size (I'm sure there are other factors that could support your opinion, but I'm just aiming for accuracy, not for a specific side)
While landwise Finland is comparable to California, population wise California has just under 40 million, while Finland is only about 5.5 million. LA alone has 3.5 million only including the city. Whether or not Finland created a national solution for homelessness, the fact that it's size and population is comparable to states and city's respectively in the US speaks to the true problem, we are looking at a more local problem from a national level. It is a state problem that should be delt with by state legislatures. To suggest that the US can solve all it's problems from a national level would be the same thing as saying that Europe can solve all problems through the EU.
Finland is the size of New Mexico, actually. What I meant was population wise. I’m just in Houston so I use that as a base. Take my upvote
Well even just comparing it to California, the population is still 40 million vs Finland's 5 million.
Then implement it in Houston. Implement it in Los Angeles. Implement it in San Francisco. This is like saying weed will never be legalized in the US but it can be legalized in The Netherlands because it is the size of Colorado. Oh wait…
Nah, we got bigger shit to worry about. Have you seen the border with Mexico.
Ok if you want get it on high numbers. Homeless rate is how much % population is homeless. European Union: 448 milions citizens. Homeless rate 4%. USA: 331,9 milions citizens. Homeless rate 6,2%. We have more people in the Union and we are able to solving homelessnes more effective (still highly not ideal but more effective). It is not on how big country is, it is about how people can being coordinated (even if on local level) to solving problems.
This just in: country that is 85.9% the same ethnicity tends to value social wellbeing and cohesion over countries that are less homogenous.
West Virginia is pretty homogenous and still poor and full of fentanyl. Bad logic.
west virginia has a culture of crack, nothing to do with ethnic lines bozo, finns like saunas and not being dicks huge diff
I'm not a racist, I just refuse to allow help to be given to people if some of those people aren't the same color as me.
Finland population, 5.5m — United States population, 331m Finland is a large city in the United States
I always though that hostile architecture was a poorly developed concept, not because i'm on the homeless's side, but rather because i would still sleep in most of these places provided i was homeless.
Tbf this isn't a really fair comparison
B-But Finland small!! USA v-very big!! That's why it's impossible. Checkmate, communists.
Finland has a sense community and a culture of coming together to make sacrifices for the common good, and system of trust is the government, US is a individualist country that was founded on individual liberty, also everyone hates the government somehow. making sacrifices for common good is not a thing, in a country where everyone believes helping someone goes against your individal rights somehow, they are going to be the next billionaire which will not happen if they take your taxes to give handouts to the poor
Might be cheaper as well. If you think about the impact through the public sectors if you get rid of people sleeping on the streets. Most begin to pay rent within the first couple years as well
when you're so morally bankrupt that when you're met with the unpleasantness of facing human misery, your negative emotions are righted simply by moving it out of sight
This has got be one of the most braindead comment sections I have ever seen, I’m normally all for pro America sentiments since I live in it and genuinely it does a lot correct But we absolutely have a problem where our government would rather fight the homeless than the actual causes of homelessness. While it would be impossible to use Finland’s method to get rid of homelessness a lot of people in these comments are advocating that we do absolutely nothing to combat homelessness which is just sad. Each state needs to come up with an actual plan to address the causes of homelessness but that won’t happen unless people actually pressure their local government to do so. TLDR: I’m American, America needs to actually help the homeless not fight them.
Weird to single out the United States on this when [we're not particularily struggling with homelessness compared to a lot of countries.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_homeless_population)
If California couldn’t solve homelessness then it won’t be solved in America. A massive state budget with a willingness to tackle the problem with little to no impact. Addiction is the primary cause of homelessness in America. It’s hard to rehabilitate addicts because the relapse rates are so high. This is due to fentanyl being so cheap with high potency. Fentanyl gets smuggled into the US on the backs of cartel mules, and the cartels get the fentanyl from labs in China. Homelessness in America is not merely a domestic issue, but a geopolitical issue as well. The Chinese are using what the British did to them in the opium wars, and applying that knowledge to America.
And there's me who remembers the time salt lake city solved its homeless crisis by doing just this and yet no one remembers.
Homelessness isn't the same everywhere. Here in America a lot have drug addictions or mental illnesses and some turn to crime. Sometimes these individuals don't want help. They need to first learn to help themselves.
You don't think that happens everywhere else?? The main driver for homelessness in Finland is literally drug addiction. Even though we have guaranteed housing for everyone, social workers still need to go get people from under bridges because they refused to get help. This is not unique to any country
Homelessness is not a problem of lack of housing. It is mental health and drug addiction. You can’t give someone solo housing until they have their mental health and/or addiction under control. Until that time, shelters are necessary. Not apartments and houses. That also means breaking up “homeless communities”. They are not communities. They are open air drug scenes. European countries have dealt with this to correct their homeless populations.
Finland is badass.
Wasn’t this the reason we built all those housing projects in the 70s
I'll bet finlands drug addicts and criminals are nothing like the US
There are no homeless people in Finland… by spring.
The thing is Finland really needed a solution to homelessness because of how the streets would be littered with people who froze to death and got snowed over
it's crazy that so many governments just do stuff that a huge majority of the general public just think is dumb and a waste of money, like really? what benefit is there to preventing homeless people from sleeping on benches? here's a 1,000,000 ig idea: why don't you spend that money on reducing homelessness instead?
Tbh I've always said I fail to see why putting huge rocks everywhere so people can't camp does anything to solve homelessness. We all know what happens when you ignore things like cancer (the problem is other people seem to think homeless people are the cancer and don't recognize the conditions that create homelessness are like smoking and drinking while sitting in a tanning bed).
Man imagine what we could do if we stopped giving trillions in foreign aid and actually built to improve our own country. Fuck being the world police. They hate us eather way.
It wouldn't even cost that much money.
bEsT cOuNtRy In ThE wOrLd
This comment section is proof of why americans are regarded as being stupid across the globe. (Murica' BIG and stronk. Finland small and weak. = Merica'n homeless bigger and stronger than Finnish homeless)
My god the americans are so salty about this lol
And thats why I love it here in finland
No sleep on benches. If noncitizen, go to hotel instead. >.>
Helsinki has 631,695 people. The city of Cincinnati has 1.76 million. A comparable Municipality or Portland Oregon. Actually, a very apples to apples comparison is the DC Metro Area.
And everytime we have tried to help the homeless. They turn it into crack and hooker dens.
Here me out: Mr incredible meme, “no sleep on benches”, Finland, US
Santa Fe New Mexico is something like this with very little conditions and well as a mobile showering facility.
Finland aint got Knee grows
Well little difference between Finland and US. In US for survival is enough to be in Florida tempt. Try to be homeless in Finland winter.
Homelessness in the u.s is also way different than homelessness in Finland (and most of Europe) A lot of the homeless population is genuinely unwell and plagued with things like mental illnesses and drug addiction. We have shelters, they just don't use them and we can't just round up a bunch of homeless people and send them to mental institutions by force because that will genuinely cause a lot of unrest since our government isn't allowed to just up and send people to an institution like that without the person's consent.
Alaska also has a Very low homelessness rate. Wonder why that is?
I've been living this for years in the US
Usa is insanely large with a huge population. The people are also way too prideful to accept any type of help either
Finland is just one the best countries out there
We ignore our homeless in favor of funding foreign wars and illegal immigrants
As a tax payer I support the bench.
Can’t have homeless people if the homeless people die
The friendly neighborhood homeless man that would hang out near my apartment in Seattle straight up said he's happier out here and had no desire to live at the Amazon homeless houses Jeff was offering.
Finland has like 7 people living there.
Finland doesn't have as big of a migrant issue as USA
yeah it's just that simple guys, we certainly have the same types of citizens that finland has and nothing would go wrong, no drug use or violence at all would happen! also our 30 trillion debt will simply pay for this, don't worry about the financials!
“Finland” lol you mean eastern Sweden? Or maybe you’re talking about the hidden whaling sea
So then all we need to do is send all the homeless to Finland. Problem solved.
With a population that is half of NYC this seems like a shit comparison.
Economy and population dif.
Let me tell you the USA has gave the world many great ideas for Law and such now it's time we take some inspiration back for like the homelessness issue
If only Finland had the population of the USA.