How Finland managed to virtually end homelessness

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by edale

There is nothing like LA's Skid Row in Europe, or any other developed nation on earth. It's a complete aberration to have tent villages not just in one area of downtown, but scattered all around the city like you see in basically all the major West Coast cities.

We put up with absolutely terrible, anti-social behavior in the name of misguided compassion. The activist class likes to say that the US refuses to give resources to fight the homeless problem, but that's just not true. Los Angeles and San Francisco spend billions of dollars every year on shelters, provision of services, homeless outreach, and construction of permanent supportive housing. Not to mention all the money spent cleaning up the heaps of garbage and refuse that the homeless leave behind. What do we get for all this money spent? Not much, as the problems continue to get worse.

We need a mechanism to forcibly remove the mentally ill from the streets. We have a group of people who essentially function as toddlers, and yet we think the answer to solve these problems is to just give all of them their own housing, free of charge, no questions asked, forever. That seems absurd to me, and it's clearly not working here.

Exactly, 100% correct.

[mhays]

We need a good safety net, but absolutely we also need to commit a large percentage of homeless to mental hospitals or long-term drug rehab. And we need to crack way down on theft and anti-social behavior.

[FromSD]

Originally Posted by edale

There is nothing like LA's Skid Row in Europe, or any other developed nation on earth. It's a complete aberration to have tent villages not just in one area of downtown, but scattered all around the city like you see in basically all the major West Coast cities.

We put up with absolutely terrible, anti-social behavior in the name of misguided compassion. The activist class likes to say that the US refuses to give resources to fight the homeless problem, but that's just not true. Los Angeles and San Francisco spend billions of dollars every year on shelters, provision of services, homeless outreach, and construction of permanent supportive housing. Not to mention all the money spent cleaning up the heaps of garbage and refuse that the homeless leave behind. What do we get for all this money spent? Not much, as the problems continue to get worse.

We need a mechanism to forcibly remove the mentally ill from the streets. We have a group of people who essentially function as toddlers, and yet we think the answer to solve these problems is to just give all of them their own housing, free of charge, no questions asked, forever. That seems absurd to me, and it's clearly not working here.

We don't have a homeless problem because of misguided compassion. "The activist class" may be misguided, but I don't think they are really calling the shots on how cities respond to the homeless problem. Cities fall short in their response because they don't have the resources to address the problem in a meaningful way. Yes, LA and San Francisco are spending a lot of money on the homeless, but it's obviously inadequate. And in LA in particular, a dedicated funding stream for supportive housing and other homeless remediation measures has only been available for a few years. In San Diego, there is no dedicated funding for the homeless. Money being spent now is what the city got from the federal government and the state as part of COVID relief.

We have a massive run-up in rents; we have work from home that has emptied out downtowns thereby making the homeless presence more troubling; we have a fentanyl epidemic; even the proliferation of tents, which you didn't used to see very often, makes the problem seem worse by making it harder to ignore,. With all these issues coming to a head at the same time, is it any wonder that cities are floundering?

In fact, it's unrealistic to expect cities to solve the homeless problem on their own, especially since many of the homeless in west coast cities in particular are arrivals from other places. Unfortunately, I doubt we're in a political climate in which the federal government is going to step in to help. Instead the homeless problem in "Democrat-led" cities will just continue to serve as a useful political foil.

I do agree that we need to develop a legal mechanism for requiring people who need help (either due to mental illness or drug addiction) to accept it when it's offered. But we are a long way from having the resources available to help even the people who want that help. In LA, people who want to get into drug addiction programs vastly outnumber the available places in those programs.

And back to Finland's success. Yes, being a small, "monocultural" country makes dealing homelessness easier, but mainly because in that kind of country it's easier to generate the political will to do something about the problem. In the U.S. the more typical response is to make the issue someone else's problem to deal with.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by Chef

The US also has vastly more resources than any of the Scandinavian countries. We just choose to not use any of them to solve our social problems because we have turned our class system into a morality play where we see the poor as deserving poverty.

We use the size and diversity of our country as an excuse to not try to solve any of our problems even though we have far greater financial resources than any other developed country. We just choose to funnel those resources to the rich.

When people say they are tired of hearing about it what they are really saying is they don't want to do anything about it.

It's still comparing a 1 child couple with a family struggling with 8 kids. Scaling still matters. There are of course lessons to be learned, just not to the obsessive point where it thinks the US can be Finland.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by JManc

The problem with a lot of homeless is that they are either mentally ill or refuse to live a structured existence; in lieu of housing, they'd have to adhere to some ground rules. I'm not sure how Finland dealt with these factors.

I don't know if Finland is a good role model considering they probably have less than 100 mentally ill homeless individuals in the whole country... They have really tiny fairly homogenous population. Their entire homeless population can fit in just a few apartment buildings.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by edale

There is nothing like LA's Skid Row in Europe, or any other developed nation on earth.

Not true, Europe has comparable places. They are just ignored and not mentioned in their media or in our Europhile media.
Here is an example of a EU slum, and there are even worse places to be honest:
• Video Link

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Creating the need for tent cities is not compassionate lol. We can debate whether it is good policy to guarantee every human their own sheltered space, but it is completely disingenuous to act as if we have actually ever guaranteed that in this country.

We can also debate whether we have the legal structure capable of that guarantee, but I also think it is disingenuous to discount that as a solution because of "culture".

In a lot of places in the US shelter is guaranteed. Heck, you live in NYC, here shelter is guaranteed. The homeless that you see in NYC on the streets choose to not be housed themselves, not because there aren't any places to house them. This is not the same as the West Coast situation, where they treat homeless people like wild animals just living on the streets together with pigeons and stray cats.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

San Francisco spends billions on homelessness, far more financial resources than most European countries, to no avail.

The U.S. often tosses money at a problem instead of acknowledging some harsh truths and actually addressing the problem using complete International best standards. Not just clickbait blurbs.

European countries arrest and institutionalize the mentally ill who create disturbances. They put drug dealers in jail. They provide housing for the remainder who are in mandatory rehab.

It’s really that simple.

It’s not that simple, but this is a good start.

• European countries arrest and institutionalize the mentally ill who create disturbances.
• They put drug dealers in jail.
• They provide housing for the remainder who are in mandatory rehab.

I would add:

• Europeans fund adequate mental health care for their people, so non-clinical individuals do not become clinical. It is preventive medicine.
• Europeans fund adequate medical care and paid leave, so that medical issues do not prevent people from staying financially secure.
• Some Europeans fund safe injection sites for people coming down from drugs so that their withdrawal is safer and more humane.
• Europeans incentivize building adequate housing for their population growth so that normal people don’t become homeless due to inadequate supply unable to meet demand pricing them out of all housing that exists.
• Europeans have a broad social safety net often including some kind of allowance in a formula tied to housing costs so that many fewer end up homeless in the first place.
• Europeans have much more time off by governments fiat, allowing them to better manage their private affairs.
• European countries are far less diverse, and like it or not all the points made about diversity affecting the implementation of social safety net policies are backed by longstanding political science research.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Gantz

In a lot of places in the US shelter is guaranteed. Heck, you live in NYC, here shelter is guaranteed. The homeless that you see in NYC on the streets choose to not be housed themselves, not because there aren't any places to house them. This is not the same as the West Coast situation, where they treat homeless people like wild animals just living on the streets together with pigeons and stray cats.

NYC has a right to shelter but not guaranteed housing. That said, you don't see tent cities in NYC. You might see some vagrants sleeping on the subway every now and then, but it is nothing like what's happening on the West Coast.

[Nouvellecosse]

What it really comes down to is with an issue like homelessness it's a lot more expensive to deal with the symptoms (shelters, outreach, mental and physical healthcare, law enforcement, loss of productivity, etc.) than it is to simply provide housing. So complaining that spending billions on the symptoms hasn't solved the problem so it's better to just give up and just use the police to persecute people doesn't make sense.

I think a lot of it is that money spent on the symptoms is seen as protecting the "important" parts of society from the effects of homelessness while spending on housing is seen as welfare.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

What it really comes down to is with an issue like homelessness it's a lot more expensive to deal with the symptoms (shelters, outreach, mental and physical healthcare, law enforcement, loss of productivity, etc.) than it is to simply provide housing.

The problem with these people isn't a lack of a house - it's that they're low-IQ and/or addicts who self-medicate with alcohol and drugs. How is the problem "solved" by giving these people free hotel rooms and making it legal for them to do drugs all day and night?

No description in the OP's article is given for what the formerly homeless people are doing with their time. Are they working?

[Doady]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The problem with these people isn't a lack of a house - it's that they're low-IQ and/or addicts who self-medicate with alcohol and drugs. How is the problem "solved" by giving these people free hotel rooms and making it legal for them to do drugs all day and night?

How would you solve the problem of low IQ? Eugenics?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The problem with these people isn't a lack of a house - it's that they're low-IQ and/or addicts who self-medicate with alcohol and drugs.

Are these people innately low IQ or did they become IQ-compromised individuals as a result of their life habits?

Why would the US, Canada or any other country have a greater percentage of low IQ people than a country like Finland?

[iheartthed]

Do low IQ people deserve to be homeless? What does IQ have to do with putting a roof over everyones head? Did people suddenly become more dumb as the economy advanced?

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Doady

How would you solve the problem of low IQ? Eugenics?

How does Finland solve it? We are told that they are the pinnacle of perfection.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Are these people innately low IQ or did they become IQ-compromised individuals as a result of their life habits?

Why would the US, Canada or any other country have a greater percentage of low IQ people than a country like Finland?

I'm assuming 'low IQ' means mentally ill or mentally retarded which in an ideal world, they would be housed in long term facilities and not allowed to languish on the street. Finland as a more robust social safety net so I would assume these populations are taken care of.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Are these people innately low IQ or did they become IQ-compromised individuals as a result of their life habits?

Why would the US, Canada or any other country have a greater percentage of low IQ people than a country like Finland?

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is one issue in my province.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

How does Finland solve it? We are told that they are the pinnacle of perfection.

I don't see anyone saying Finland are the pinnacle of perfection. I only see the Toronto Star talking about Finland of reducing homeless by 80 percent by taking care of people who need care, and that includes people with low IQ.

Police in Toronto want to find a man with Down syndrome missing for the past 2 days. Should they just not bother? My cousin has low IQ, 7 years old, she can't speak, she can't walk, she can't crawl. What would you do with her? Just let her die because she can't take care of herself?

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The problem with these people isn't a lack of a house - it's that they're low-IQ and/or addicts who self-medicate with alcohol and drugs. How is the problem "solved" by giving these people free hotel rooms and making it legal for them to do drugs all day and night?

No description in the OP's article is given for what the formerly homeless people are doing with their time. Are they working?

It solves the problem of homelessness by making them...not homeless. It doesn't solve the problem of drug addiction or mental health because that's not the intent. Though it does make it easier to get help for one's addictions & health if homed; and in Finland, the housing-for-homeless also includes on-site councillors & resources for those who do wish to better themselves. At the very least, it takes the problem off the street.

As noted in the video I posted earlier, the Finnish model is simply housing first; whereas most North American housing-for-homeless models tend to be predicted on getting clean first (a hard thing to do when unhoused, even if one wanted to).

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The problem with these people isn't a lack of a house - it's that they're low-IQ and/or addicts who self-medicate with alcohol and drugs. How is the problem "solved" by giving these people free hotel rooms and making it legal for them to do drugs all day and night?

They are at least out of sight, which seems to be American's main concern with homeless and it's better than doing nothing. The issue in the US is complaining about homelessness then not wanting to pay for it or have low-income developments/shelters in their city. CA is in a legal fight with Elk Grove at the moment for refusing to allow a low-income project even though the residents complain about the homeless in Sacramento.

No description in the OP's article is given for what the formerly homeless people are doing with their time. Are they working?

If they are drug addicted or "low-IQ" who the hell will hire them or want them around their business?