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Solving homelessness
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this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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Unfortunately the situation isn't solved in Scandinavia or Finland either. I've seen plenty of homeless looking people in Sweden sleeping around Stockholm. Many of them seemed like immigrants, not sure what the situation is there. I doubt they're all those pretend homeless beggars. And with Finland we have our own homeless. Even with housing and all kinds of programs to help people and whatnot, some don't take the housing, want to go into programs and so on. Usually it's addiction (often alcohol, drugs have become more common though) or mental health related. I'm not sure what could be done about that that isn't being done or tried already.
We're capitalist countries too, we just have extensive social safety nets. But there always seems to be people who fall through the cracks, for one reason or another.
That's just the way of life I think, not everyone needs or wants help - like you pointed out a lot of this is linked to addiction and mental health. But as long as everyone can access help when they're ready your government seems to be doing as much as they can right now. More than most countries including the US.
When it comes to the beggars in Sweden, they're generally not Swedish citizens, and as such I don't think they qualify for the housing assistance programmes we have here. There definitely are homeless people in Sweden, according to this report from Socialstyrelsen there's more than 27000 homeless people in Sweden.
There are a couple of definitions of homeless here though.
Situation 1: Acute Homelessness
Individuals sleeping outdoors or in stairwells, cars, tents, etc., and also those staying in emergency shelters, hostels, or similar temporary accommodations.
Situation 2: Institutional Stay and Supported Housing
Pertains to individuals in prison, healthcare institutions, or supported living who will leave within three months but do not have a home to go to.
Situation 3: Long-term Housing Solutions
Refers to living in special housing solutions provided by social services, where the accommodation is linked with supervision and specific conditions or rules, like trial apartments, training apartments, and social contracts.
Situation 4: Self-arranged Short-term Housing
Living temporarily without a contract with friends/acquaintances, family/relatives, or under a temporary lodging or subletting arrangement with a private individual.
This page on Boverket claims that in 2017 there were 32400 homeless people, 18% of those (5900) were classified as acutely homeless.
It's not just addiction, though that always plays a part. For many it's also about trust. I may be reaching as my knowledge is mostly for here in the U.S., though lack of trust in institutions is a learned reaction. They do not accept help because it has ended badly in the past, and badly may have been as simple as given some hope and had it swept out from under them.
I support aiding homelessness not through the creation of programs alone. Those programs should also come with trained specialists willing to work over time to gain the trust of these people. Who act as mobile case workers and intake personnel into these programs, and keep tabs throughout the process. Now I am sure some personnel exist, and perhaps it is being done this exact way. If it isn't though, some changes should be made. Elimination is unlikely, though there is a huge difference between perfection and incompetence.
The lack of trust in institutions is kind of in the American DNA. The country was formed by a revolt against institutions, natives who trusted the institutions were killed or forced onto reservations, when it looked like slavery was outlawed a bunch of people took up arms. The labor movement didn't have pleasant protests - they got shot and bombed by the government. More recently you've got things like COINTELPRO and the Tuskegee experiments and the war on drugs that had the CIA importing drugs.
If you know enough US history you learn that the institutions are not to be trusted.
Trust in institutions is really high here in Finland. Anecdotally, from what I've seen and heard from people who have struggled with issues (including addiction and on-off homelessness) they seem to regard those people well. Social workers, police, healthcare workers, volunteer people, those people from the "system" or close to it that interacts with them a lot are usually held in high or at least moderate regard. Of course miffed if the police "hassle" them by making them leave or stop drinking in public or something like that, but still respected and considered at least alright.
Not to say that the lack of trust couldn't exist. If we believe that most seem to have some level of trust, then it would fit in with the numbers in that Finland has fairly low levels of homelessness.