Brent ToderianJul 8, 2023

This is REALLY important.

“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment and counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”

Let that sink in. It costs less than accepting homelessness.

#Finland #Helsinki #homeless #cities #homes
https://scoop.me/housing-first-finland-homelessness/

Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need - scoop.me

In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Why? The country applies the "Housing First" concept agains homelessness.

scoop.me
Show threadNick's worldJul 8, 2023
@lisamelton @BrentToderian The only reason it works is because Finland has a smaller population. In the US, it could never work plus our cultures are very different.
Show threadChris ♾️Sep 5, 2023
@gocu54 @lisamelton @BrentToderian Um, bullshit.
There's no reason having a smaller population is advantageous in housing the homeless, if anything it means they do it with fewer resources.

The culture difference does matter, it's that in the US we're acculturated to thinking that it's better to punish the homeless (and pay the costs associated with keeping them out on the street, never mind that it costs more to keep people on the street than it does to give them an apartment and some time with a social worker, and never mind that punishing them just means they become everyone's disruptive problem until they either end up in jail or dead) than it is to get those people back on their feet as quickly as possible.
Show threadNick's world
@BeautifulMind @BrentToderian @lisamelton I'm sort of lost here. What's this about?
Sep 5, 2023 at 5:24pmWeb
Show threadChris ♾️Sep 5, 2023
@gocu54 @BrentToderian @lisamelton Your prior post looked like the usual "it can't work in the US because <some pretext>" deflection that serves to change the subject away from things the US really could do if it wanted to- in particular, the subject is that in Finland they're solving homelessness by giving the homeless housing.

It turns out that some places in the US are already taking this approach- all it took was for Utah (for example) to figure out that it spends more taxpayer money per homeless person to have them be homeless than it does to give them an apartment and help them find work.

I'm so, so tired of seeing people argue online that the thing we should be doing (like single-payer health care or having better labor protections or stronger unions) "only works for them because they have a [small population \ racially homogeneous population]"

That's usually just a thought-terminating cliché, deployed for the purpose of shutting down the question and preventing real consideration of why we ought to do the right thing versus leaving the status quo as it is