Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand has suggested that the solution to the crisis may be a Finnish model, which is a ‘housing first’ approach that aims to give everyone a home.
Never have I seen so many people with so many unworkable solutions to a problem take so long to come to the most obvious solution. Just give people homes. Don’t let people die on the street, it’s inhumane.
Yeah but… capitalism?
Sounds simple. But Finland is an insular society and has different social issues.
In my city, there was a push to put social housing in place, as most of the local homeless population lacked the skills to maintain a house by themselves. Mental illness and addiction together affect a very large part of the homeless population.
The result was that some people who sorely needed housing got some, and a lot of people refused to take part because they didn’t want to agree to other people’s rules.
And then the social housing attracted people from nearby communities so that it’s now full, but the majority of the local homeless from before the project started are still homeless.
Just saying that “just give everyone a home” may sound simple, but in reality is very complex.
Problem, the homes are getting full. The solution: Build more homes? Too complex.
The big issue I see is states that don’t want to implement social housing programs just shipping their unhousedpeoples to states that do and overwhelming the systems created.
I live in Chicago, one of the locations that many migrants are being shipped to, but even here the city refuses to build additional housing, or even use it’s Department of Housing to fund the refurbishing of it’s hundreds of units of dilapidated housing. Ultimately if the solution doesn’t enrich someone with money, it isn’t something that will ever happen in most of the world.
What you’re describing is not “just give everyone a home”, so I’m not surprised it didn’t work.
Homeless in Finland are pretty much all addicts or people with mental illness. The problem is 100% same here than other developed nations.
I think homelessness and despair cause mental illness and substance abuse. If we can prevent “normal” people from losing their homes, I think they would be more stable and able to take care of themselves long term.
Allowing homelessness is far more costly to everyone else than preventing it.
Yes, many things have to have failed before person ends up homeless.
In Finland the positive side is that homelessness is near impossible due financial situation in Finland, state will always provide you enough welfare to have a home (system pays 80% of your rent if you are on welfare)
Whereas in the USA, the only thing that has to fail for you to become homeless is your health.
What city was this that tried housing first and it didn’t work? I’m interested in reading the details
I am reading a book on supporting universal basic income, and it provided all examples of the times when the homeless were provided unconditional income and a home. Every cities in the world that did this have been successful in eliminating homelessness.
This is not a Finnish model, it’s common sense.
What’s the name of the book?
“Utopia for Realists”
But this is just common sense?
I don’t necessarily disagree, but why isn’t it widely adopted then?
If we guarantee enough housing for everyone, it stops being as valuable as a speculative asset. Which is bad for landlords (including the ones that work in legislation)
Also economists (who are usually wealthy enough to be able to landlord if they want to do so)… which means they’re financially incentivised to hold right wing economic views like “rent control doesn’t work, 9/10 economists recommend against it!” like it’s a toothpaste advert and economists who challenge that don’t get much spotlight in the mainstream.
Rent control doesn’t work, the economists are correct (Who woulda thunk it, but studying the way prices are determined is a valid field of academic study). Or rather it does work for some people but makes life harder for others, and isn’t nearly as good of an approach as people think.
That’s not what we were talking about here. We were talking about building enough housing to be able to guarantee it for everyone. That’s not rent control, that’s just investing in our housing supply.
That’s not what we were talking about here. We were talking about building enough housing to be able to guarantee it for everyone. That’s not rent control, that’s just investing in our housing supply.
The topic of this conversation follows from your statement:
Which is bad for landlords (including the ones that work in legislation)
i.e. landowners and people in power hold sway over the decision making process and are keeping us away from legislation that houses people. Unless I misread you. That’s why I brought up another example.
Rent control doesn’t work, the economists are correct (Who woulda thunk it, but studying the way prices are determined is a valid field of academic study). Or rather it does work for some people but makes life harder for others, and isn’t nearly as good of an approach as people think.
You clearly did not read the link, the person who wrote it is a PhD economist. Also, using one solution as a way to fix housing is naive, when we could (and should be, it’s horribly unaffordable for average people in urban areas, where most people in western countries live, already) be using many, including rent control.
Greed. And people just unwilling to change from what they have been grown accustomed to.
It really should be catching the eye of all cities / countries with large homeless issues.
