I don't agree that every solution Finland or Iceland comes up with can be replicated to the rest of the world. These are ethnically homogenous countries with a small population and the majority of which is centered in a small area. Swedens perfect approach to education in the 2000's has now been debunked and even the swedes are telling everyone not to do what they did! I think the same would be true of Finlands "solution".<p>The US by contrast is a continent in its own right with a vastly diverse set of people and cultures. My own experience of the bay area is people are extremely giving and donate a lot of money and time towards homeless efforts. However I feel the latest backlash is born from fatigue towards no solution in sight. If homeless refuse to accept help or seek alternative options to sleeping on the street why would you want to keep helping? I am still stunned that the tiny city of San Francisco had a $300m annual budget to help less than 5000 people. Thats $60k/homeless person, this is greater than the per capita GDP of every single country on earth except the US.<p>Anecdotally I have a guy living in his car on my street that is filled to the ceiling with trash, he refuses to move or get into a shelter despite us trying to help him. Sadly the neighbors on the street are starting to sour towards him after 6 months of having social workers reach out to help and various charities try to assist.
It's unfortunate that the culture in the US is so deprived of compassion and so focused on the "punish first" reaction to anything outside of the ordinary that it will be difficult if not impossible to get anything like this solution adopted.<p>It's plan to see, even in the comments in this forum so many are really quick to jump to "but mental illness..." "but drugs..." etc...<p>It makes me sad to realize this is unlikely to change during my lifetime.
The article's "solution to homelessness" is giving homeless people homes.<p>The article says they have to pay rent or they get kicked out, but doesn't explain how these homeless people can suddenly afford rent.
I live in Salt Lake City and we were doing a pretty good job with this approach. Unfortunately, a change in the police chain of command and in the local government led to scaling back of the housing program and a switch to a more traditional model (arrest, choice between jail or rehab, various support programs, housing at the end if you make it through all that).<p>This new system (which is really the old system come full circle) is much less effective as is clear to anyone who walks around the city. We have a beautiful public library downtown, which is completely unpleasant to visit because it has turned into the place where the homeless stay during the day. About half the times I go I see someone either being arrested or in active withdrawal.<p>Like most social problems, the solutions are simple, but politically hard to sell, and even harder to maintain once they've been put in place.
One problem of applying this to the American cities that have a homeless problem is that housing in those cities is prohibitively expensive.<p>Go to a city like Seattle and a 1 bed 1 bath is going to cost 300k+ to construct at density. (The city doesn't have enough land to build enough tiny houses at 30k or so a pop, so fixing the entire housing problem that way isn't doable.)
Does anyone here think markets alone could solve this problem? Or do you see that coordinated group action is necessary to practically solve problems markets can’t fix?
On the surface this kind of solution is easy to dismiss as an expensive socialist extreme; a cost to the taxpayer that there is no political appetite for in other countries. Yet counter-intuitively this is likely a saving for the taxpayer, as hospitals and prisons often end up filling this role, at a much larger cost than simply housing people.
Comparing other countries'policies to our own is like saying "but it works on <i>my</i>computer". There are too many differences in culture, rights and laws to just pretend that if something works over there, then it should work here too.
The solution to homelessness is {drum rolls} giving people homes.<p>Who knew?
I am not partial to 'handout' economy, but one wonders where did capitalism go wrong.