
Rough sleeping has been almost eradicated in Helsinki - Sami_Lehtinen
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-46891392
======
komali2
I wish we'd do this. I get in arguments with friends, usually the response is
"why should they be housed if they're just gonna drink or do drugs?" "Why
should there be free public restrooms? Homeless people might shoot up or have
sex in them."

Well... They're drinking, shooting up, and having sex right at the bus stop,
so I'd happily pay to have them do it out of sight, without even considering
the fact that it's more moral to care for the downtrodden.

So much pride seems wrapped up in it. "why should I pay for someone else to be
a lazy drug addict? That's MY MONEY!" It's not a solution oriented mindset.
Like, they're gonna shoot up on the street where you gotta step over their
needles, or in a house away from you. Seems obvious to me, even if it's more
expensive.

If you're looking for a similar solution to getting the homeless out of sight
without "costing tax-payer money," the only one I can think of is murdering
the homeless, or maybe shipping them to an island? Obviously, insane. So how
do I overcome the pride barrier in these conversations?

~~~
rdm_blackhole
I don't think it is an issue of pride but more of fairness.

If you find yourself on the streets because you lost your job or because you
had a rough upbringing or because you had to flee from an abusive parent or
partner, you should get housing paid by the state.

Where I draw the line, personally is to give free housing unconditionally to
addicts.

I am not saying they shouldn't get it, I am saying they should get it under
certain conditions, for example entering a program, doing some sort of
training, get a job, anything.

Because how is it doing any good to society if you just give housing without
people having to change their bad habits?

In the article, the lady who is alcoholic says she can just keep drinking in
her room, so she probably doesn't want to work or get better. In this case, I
would much rather have her room go to a single mum struggling with her kids or
to somebody who actually wants to do something with their lives.

Instead, she is probably going to keep drinking and nothing will change.
Housing being a finite resource and taxpayers money being finite as well,
priorities should be given to people who actually want to get better.

In an ideal world, maybe you can give a room/apartment to everybody out there
who needs one including the people who just want to drink or shoot up all day.

But as it stands it does not makes sense and is ripe for abuse if everybody
expects free housing even if they are not willing to change just a little bit.

~~~
matt4077
I have no idea how anyone could look at homeless people and think, “what they
really need is a bit more suffering to finally get their act together”.

As an actual attempt to convince you of the value of even poor people’s lives,
I invite you to consider if homelessness could possibly seen as a disease more
than any personal lack of virtue. The view has somewhat changed wrt drug
dependency (thanks white people on opioids), and there is ample evidence that
schizophrenia is widespread among the homeless.

There have also been some recent studies that a rather large fraction of
homeless people had experienced head trauma _before_ becoming homeless. The
rate was something like 30% (vs. 3% among the general population).

Finally, the “tough love, minus actual love” approach is obviously the status
quo. To insist on a failed strategy just to satisfy some moral
standard/sadistic instinct seems indefensible. The worst part is that people
are obviously willing to incur far larger costs in the criminal justice
system, through crimes themselves, and the inconvenience to actually see these
people they thoroughly despise/fear: they are willing to pay extra, as long as
they are assured the money does not possibly help anyone.

Consider any other scenario where you’re trying to get people to behave in
certain ways: parenting, dog training, employment reviews, etc: if you’re
beating the crap out of your child twice weekly for being difficult, would you
expect their behavior to improve?

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
> I have no idea how anyone could look at homeless people and think, “what
> they really need is a bit more suffering to finally get their act together”.

As a person who used to eat with the homeless every day in London, I
absolutely do.

There is so much opportunity for lazy and stupid people, especially in the
West. A large proportion of the people lining up with me for food from the
Hare Krishna people (and a local Christian church too) in Holborn were rude,
entitled, and lazy.

If kids were brought up with a little more discipline, they might become
adults who appreciate hard graft. If this were true in London and that
discipline were implemented, half the people in that food line wouldn't be
there.

Maybe that's why I rarely see homeless people in Poland.

They work.

~~~
smileypete
Apparently rough sleepers from other European countries are over represented
in London at 30% (not judging them btw, just the facts) so I'd say it's not a
simple matter of 'work ethic':

[https://www.nao.org.uk/naoblog/growing-number-of-rough-
sleep...](https://www.nao.org.uk/naoblog/growing-number-of-rough-sleepers/)

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Thanks for adding some data; that’s certainly useful.

From the article, the data show a high proportion of rough sleepers abusing
substances. I would lump this in together with work ethic.

------
tomglynch
The comments is a minefield of American's taking issue to the term 'Rough
Sleeping'. Other countries also have sayings that you don't use. It's fine
(even beneficial) to learn more about other cultures.

~~~
yeutterg
Totally agree, I just wanted to point out that a lot of Americans probably
wouldn't click on the article in the first place from the headline alone

~~~
DiabloD3
I'm an American and clicked on it in hopes I'd figure out what that meant.

In the end, I had to come to the HN comments because I wasn't 100% sure they
meant the homeless; since this is the BBC, and I've seen enough British TV, I
know the British themselves use the word homeless.

Maybe this is one of those weird misplaced PC-ification of the language
things?

~~~
NeedMoreTea
In a Brit context, homeless encompasses both rough sleeping and sofa surfing.

There's countless homeless who aren't sleeping rough on the streets but are
taking space, unofficially in someone's spare room, or literally on their sofa
or floor. How are the two forms of homelessness distinguished in US usage?

Rough sleeping is as it suggests: Sleeping outside, sleeping bag in shop
doorway, tent, abandoned building, under the railway bridge etc.

------
8bitsrule
Imagine how much would have to be missing for you to get into that position.
No money, no address, no phone, no bathroom, no place to stay, no regular
meals, living outdoors and exposed, carrying everything you own around.

What asylum could possibly give you a chance to rebuild?

And here it turns out that what home-less people need most is a home.

------
softgrow
Slightly tangential there is a 2002 Finnish comedy-drama film about a man who
becomes homeless and then the dangers of sleeping rough in Helsinki (freeze to
death) and so on. I enjoyed it in the cinema, it won awards at Cannes,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Past)
(Finnish:Mies vailla menneisyyttä)

------
dev_dull
> _Since 2007, their government has built homeless policies on the foundations
> of the "Housing First" principle.

> Put simply, it gives rough sleepers or people who become homeless a stable
> and permanent home of their own as soon as possible._

Sorry to sound cynical, but is this an actual solution? Rather than treating
the cause, they are simply spending money to remove the symptom. This type of
"fix" can be done with any problem given a deep enough pocket.

I have nothing against housing the indigent. I'm just constantly surprised why
nobody seems interested in treating the obvious and insidious causes of such
problems.

~~~
lazyasciiart
You sound both cynical and uninformed. Plenty of organizations have found that
treating the obvious causes is far easier when people are in a house, and it
is rapidly becoming recognized even in America as the cheapest and most
effective way to reduce homelessness. [http://endhomelessness.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/housin...](http://endhomelessness.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/housing-first-fact-sheet.pdf)

------
cafard
"HDI has a total of 403 apartments in Helsinki and the neighbouring city of
Espoo." Wikipedia says that the city has a population of about 643 thousand,
so there is one apartment per 1600 of population. San Francisco should then
provide around 550 apartments. What sort of dent does that make in the San
Francisco homeless problem?

The BBC article mentions housing the formerly homeless with families and
friends, and I have to think this makes up a pretty large part of the housing.
It seems to me that this must require a degree of something in between
persuasion and coercion.

------
lwhi
I was in Helsinki last year at a music festival with a friend.

The number of people begging for drinks cans and plastic bottles (to sell for
recycling) was huge. Definitely in the hundreds. Sometimes we were asked to
hurry up drinking, so the can / bottle could be taken.

We also saw many people scour parks for recycling.

I can't comment on the issue of homelessness, but I can comment on the huge
disparity of wealth between the citizens of Helsinki.

On one hand the fact that recycling was being taken care of felt admirable.
But the creation of an economic underclass felt a bit obscene.

~~~
container
Though they may be located in Helsinki, I think the people doing that sort of
stuff usually don't have citizenship.

~~~
lwhi
True, I wonder if they are even included in the statistics?

~~~
container
It doesn't seem that they are. And as for the claim in the article that "no-
one is begging", anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes in Helsinki knows
that's not true. Most of the people begging might have come from abroad, but
they're there. And when it comes to the statistics, I found this reference:

"In addition to the homelessness visible in statistics, the existence of
undocumented migrants is a phenomenon connected to homelessness. An
undocumented migrant is a person, who does not have a legal right of residence
and whose residence in Finland is not known to or permitted by the
authorities. Different estimates by experts on the number of undocumented
migrants in Finland vary between 500 and 3,000 people [...]" (PDF report
downloaded from [https://tinyurl.com/ycybdjtc](https://tinyurl.com/ycybdjtc))

Edit: Additionally, EU citizens may legally stay in Finland for months, are
many are known to do so, even if they can unfortunately only make a living
panhandling

------
ecmandail
I wonder what ratio is in London.

------
sdrothrock
dang, the headline is "The city with no homeless on its streets", which is
clickbaity and vague, but the current link title is hard to understand. Could
we maybe compromise with "Homelessness has almost been eradicated in
Helsinki?"

~~~
stevenjohns
Being homeless could also mean that your house burned down so you’re staying
in a hotel. Or that you’re in a battered women’s shelter. Or maybe sleeping in
a car or at a friend’s house.

It doesn’t just mean sleeping outside - this is a common misconception.

~~~
yeutterg
Some digital nomads classify themselves as homeless, although it's a bit
tongue-in-cheek as they are clearly of a different socioeconomic status.

At least for me, when I hear the word homeless I first think of someone living
on the streets. We don't have exact equivalent to rough sleeping in the U.S.
that I can readily think of.

------
abhinai
"Rough sleeping". I learned a new phrase today. :)

------
yeutterg
FYI, as an urban American I had never heard the term rough sleeping. Some
brief Googling leads me to believe this is an alternative term for
homelessness mostly used in the UK.

You may consider changing the title to include the word homeless. It's more
descriptive to Americans, at least to n=1.

~~~
pmiller2
“Rough sleeping” doesn’t mean “homeless.” It means “sleeping outside without
shelter.” Homeless people live in cars, shelters, or on friends’ couches, too,
not just literally on the street.

~~~
yeutterg
Point taken and appreciated. I agree that homeless is a bit of a catch-all,
but I'm not sure that we have any equivalent phrase to rough sleeping in the
US (at least on the East Coast). When I hear the word homeless, I first think
of people living on the streets.

~~~
lazyasciiart
"unsheltered" is the term used in the US.

~~~
yeutterg
Haven't heard it used much, but it makes total sense. Thanks!

------
adamnemecek
For this to happen there needs to be a cultural shift in the US. Finland
values equality, US not so much.

~~~
tenpies
It's not even cultural, there are huge demographic, economic, and social
differences between Finland and the US. I always find it ironic when people
prop up the Nordic countries as utopian, but completely ignore the price of
these "utopias". Nothing is ever free.

~~~
kwhitefoot
No one is claiming any of this is free. Some are claiming, often with evidence
from the US, that providing apartments is cheaper than the kind of charity
based temporary shelters that are usually the only thing available.

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-corinth/think-utah-
solv...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-corinth/think-utah-solved-
homeles_b_9380860.html?guccounter=1)

[https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-
chroni...](https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-
homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how?t=1549465405874)

------
anovikov
I don't know why is this even a problem. There is no rough sleeping or begging
in even such a poor country as Belarus. People just know it's a no-no, simply
cops have been very persistent at removing them for a few years, and nobody
left willing to try.

~~~
cschep
where do the cops put them? you can't just remove people.

~~~
orthoxerox
Yes you can. If people support anti-homeless spikes these people will tolerate
cops dealing with the homeless by giving them a free ride to the nearest
forest in winter. Out of sight, out of mind.

~~~
anovikov
Thing is, if this system works reliably and swiftly enough, it stops being so
scary coz you run out of bums: people are deterred well enough from bumming.
And you don't need to be as harsh to them as you say, just let everyone
understand that spending nights in the street begging and drinking will not be
tolerated. Plus of course, you need to have at least some social safety net to
help those of them that can be helped, and they have it in Belarus, the
country has an expansive system of redundant government-sponsored workplaces
which functions almost as universal base income.

