Finland's zero homeless strategy (2021)

> I should mention that I've seen fairly convincing cross-sectional evidence that homelessness is more related to the housing market than mental illness

This is absolutely the right diagnosis. For instance, SROs used to be very affordable.[1] Placing someone into housing was well within the means of local governments and non-profits.

In Coppola's 1974 movie The Conversation, a large portion of the titular dialogue is about a homeless person Williams' character spots while walking around a crowded Union Square. That's how much homelessness stood out back then.

[1] https://ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san-francisco/

"Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214 compared with 93 in the UK ..."

Wow those numbers seem high if they're counting unique people and not admissions and re-admisisons.

Just for comparison, some data (2011-2018) for some USA states [1], show an even higher number:

> In 24 states-accounting for 51.9% of the U.S. population-591,402 emergency involuntary detentions were recorded in 2014, the most recent year with most states reporting, a crude rate of 357 per 100,000.

Notably, California with 400/100k. Florida with 900/100k. I think the why would make these numbers more interesting. How many are drug detox/recovery?

[1] https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/epdf/10.1176/appi.ps.201900...

> edit: I should mention that I've seen fairly convincing cross-sectional evidence that homelessness is more related to the housing market than mental illness: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/homelessness-is-a-housing-prob... , https://www.nahro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/NAHRO-Summi...

The problem is that there are very different groups of people we're talking about, so much so that throwing them all under the "homeless" umbrella doesn't make sense. It's like saying car accidents are a traffic design problem, not an alcohol problem. Sure, both things can lead to traffic accidents, but they're pretty different problems.

People who temporarily need some assistance to get back on there feet are in a categorically different group than the people who are currently unable to function in society. These are fundamentally different problems.

I've seen how D.C. has tried housing first. It's given thousands of individuals free apartments, for life as far as I can tell, some in very expensive areas. It's been an enormous failure, since housing doesn't actually solve the very serious underlying problems that many of these people have. A lot of long-term residents to flee places that were once (comparatively) affordable because of rising crime and violence. The Washington Post has occasionally covered this [1][2].

I watched a neighborhood meeting recently about the issue. The city does wellness checks on the people in the program - but they can just completely ignore them, and nothing happens. Long term residents have been forced out after people in the program have attacked them or threatened to kill them and the city doesn't do anything, and doesn't even remove them from the program. A councilmember was taking part in the meeting, and had nothing to say other than he was looking into ways that the city could provide more help to people in the program.

The linked article is bordering on misinformation by not mentioning Finland's compulsory commitment, and also ignoring the failures of housing first in the U.S. like D.C.'s that haven't included that aspect. That's why a lot of these programs end up failing - people try to pick and choose the elements that they want, and ignore necessary elements that they find inconvenient. In the end, that doesn't help anyone.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-housed-t...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/08/dc-paid-h...

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" does not automatically mean "good, moral, and upstanding lifestyle."

To the extent that people have a natural right to exist and society does not I think it should be contingent on administrators to prove the standard they're applying is actually reasonable and non discriminatory.

Edit - ok, I see the mistake. Thanks.

"Finland has the highest rates of detention per 100 000 inhabitants, about 214"

If by detention you mean incarceration, that is still shy of half of the US rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...

Why would they not scale? We have more people, more capacity to build, and greater opportunities for economies of scale.

Every homeless person, regardless of mental state, still needs housing. It is the one unifying aspect of homelessness.

> such as former convicts, individuals with substance abuse issues, those with mental health challenges, people who lost jobs or income, refugees, and more

The one thing they all have in common is how much more expensive it is to house them than it used to be.

It’s also about cultural homogeneity. Countries like Finland, Denmark, and Norway often have relatively uniform cultural frameworks, which can make it easier to implement broad social policies. The U.S., by contrast, is among the most multicultural nations in the world. This isn’t a critique of diversity, but an acknowledgment that diversity often leads to more complex social dynamics and outcomes than homogeneity.

An interesting case might be Israel. While it has a Jewish majority, there’s significant diversity within that cultural framework: religious, ethnic, and ideological [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Israel

You make great points and yes there are definitely many causes and they might need different approaches. But it is bullshit in this day and age that as a society we have people living in the cold and on the streets. Elon Musk has billions of dollars, good for him. But if he was to spend $500k each day it would take him around 2200-2400 years to spend it all. Ridiculous. There is no reason that kids have to come to school hungry or wear one set of clothes in this day and age. It’s sad. Capitalism for the win. But sorry to the child who goes hungry. I don’t think everything should come easy but having seen a kid steal free food from the breakfast club at school then when asked hey how come you are hiding food you don’t need to it’s free and he says because his little brother not yet in school is at home and has no food your heart fucking breaks. I pray I live long enough to see money and capitalism fail.

The housing situation in Canada is insane and is so obviously due to not building enough housing and bringing too many people into the country via immigration. The fact that it costs 1200$/month for a room in a rural area is incredibly damning.

I went to college in Ottawa, and now I live in Austin Texas. It's similar in size, although Austin has been growing more lately. Curiously, they are also both capitols, college towns and they have a river flowing through them.

A major difference is that Austin has a new development with 200-400 unites on every block it seems. Cranes are everywhere downtown, and even in random neighborhoods they have huge new developments. Ottawa has no shortage of land, there's a huge amount of available land to develop in either direction, but they evidently aren't building nearly as much.

The result? I'm looking at 2 bedroom apartments, and they are 1000$ cheaper than they were 3 years ago when I first moved here. Rent has gone down and continues to go down. I'm seeing studio apartments in the middle of the city renting out for 800$ now!

I'm confused about how you haven't been able to find a job. I'm a student in Ontario and have received multiple job offers. They're not great jobs (fast food, warehouse work, etc.), but it's better than having no job at all. Everyone I know has also been able to get offers for low skill jobs as well.

How have you not been able to get even a low-skill minimum wage job despite searching since May? I'm not trying to insult you or anything, just trying to understand your situation.

With all due respect, why volunteer? I notice this with a lot of homeless people I chat with (there's a lot here in Boulder) - many of them volunteer their time at various charities while being homeless.

Wouldn't it be better devoting 100% of your spare time to getting back on your feet, and then volunteer, or donate?

Stay warm! And thank you for stepping forward to share your story and perspective. HN needs much more of it.

I look after a citizen science-driven phytochemistry research activity and would be interested to understand more about your background. My email is in my HN user page.

While I'm not homeless, the existence of USB(powerbank) heated clothes have been a very comfy discovery of mine recently. A bit fiddly at times sure but having hours of comfy warmth available at the press of a button is worth it.

I've wondered if this is something adopted by the homeless already? and if not, look into it.

You still need proper insulating layers on top of the heating ones, and many of the cheapest chinese varieties might have undersized heat pads that might not use the quick charge ability and merely provide warmth as opposed to heat. But I'm welcoming every extra watt of heat whenever cold.

My understanding is that Northern Europe has a much more robust system of using Long Acting Injectable Antipsychotics (under court order if nessecary) and various group home options or Assertive Community Treatment teams that have nurses visit patients daily. They are also quicker to use lithium and clozapine when indicated. They also do much longer hospital stays when needed than our revolving door policies here. Also they don't have meth and fentanyl epidemics yet.

We know that the longer psychosis goes untreated/the more times someone goes off the meds, the harder it is to treat, and that what happens in the first few years of someone developing a psychotic disorder makes a huge difference in long term outcomes.

An American might develop psychosis in their mid 20s, end up committed for a few weeks and placed on antipsychotic pills until they're no longer floridly psychotic, and then go home, not follow up with doctors/refill meds, and end up on a cycle of this with more and more brittle symptoms until they're homeless and have no real chance of recovery.

The same person in Northern Europe would likely be hospitalized for longer initially, started on an injectable that only needs to be given once a month, and they leave the hospital with fewer residual symptoms. They're then followed by an ACT team with a nurse visiting to check on them and make sure they're eating and keeping housing, and ensuring that shot goes in their arm every month. They don't necessarily fully recover, but a lot of them end up being able to do some kind of schooling/employment/volunteering and they are either stable enough to keep housing without being evicted for disruption, or are shuffled into staffed group homes.

You're assuming others share your perspective and understanding.

> The transition to using the word "homeless" has resulted in transforming something we can't easily measure -- "drug addicted or mentally ill people being a public menace" -- into something that we can measure -- "people without a good living arrangement".

> the former is the actual problem that we care about

The word homeless is pretty old, not something people have 'tranistioned' to any time recently.

I haven't seen anyone trying use 'homeless' as a euphemism; they are actually concerned about people without housing. That is the big problem.

You apparently believe "drug addicted or mentally ill people being a public menace" is a comparable problem, but your comment is the first time I've heard that. Nobody is conspiring to hide it; they just don't think about it like you do.

I spend a lot of time in cities and know others who do too. None feel menaced by people who are unhoused - why would that be menacing? - or high. High people generally don't know you are there, and are easily avoided. I've had zero problems; I don't know of anyone else who has.

Also, the subtext is about eroding human rights. You have no more rights than a homeless or high person. Feeling 'menaced' is not sufficient to compromise someone's freedom. That's what freedom means - of course people can always do things that others don't mind; freedom means doing things other people don't like. I find your comment menacing; who decides who gets locked up?

Have you ever considered that it may be the other way around? That the horrors of living on the street (and "horrors" is an appropriate term here, you are fighting for survival every day; it is beyond the realm of comprehension of the housed) might be causing the mental illness and drug use, rather than the other way around?

If I want to get a homeless person off of drugs, it sure as crisps is not going to happen until they have a roof over their head. The core issue is the lack of affordable housing. That should be priority number 1.

What is the question you’re asking here?

I’m Finnish and I have a close family member with a severe mental illness, so I should be reasonably well positioned to answer your question. But it doesn’t make any sense to me.

How does any of this relate to homelessness?

To get people off the streets, you give them a place to live. Then you can start solving their other problems. It’s common sense.

I'm really sick of people lumping homeless people in with "drug addicted or mentally ill people". There is a lot of sober hard working people that are homeless because they got caught out with some bad luck and don't have friends or relatives to fall back on. Once your homeless everything becomes much harder.

> "drug addicted or mentally ill people being a public menace"

Finland also is rather aggressive with involuntary detention of those deemed to be a potential danger to themselves or others.

Charles Lehman was on the Ezra Klein show recently[1] and had a useful definition for disorder, re: your first point.

This may not be exactly the quote, but it was something like "Disorder is domination of public space for private purposes."

As an SF resident, that really resonated; day-to-day quality of life here (for me, at least) feels much more impacted by that type of "disorder" than "homelessness" generally (obviously we need housing solutions too)

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...

Finland is cold. People without adequate housing will freeze to death. Not finding bodies in the spring thaw is probably actually important to them.

No, there are not "a number of effective drugs." I interviewed 100 mental patients and the rare ones with hallucinations were not cured. Benzos help anxiety, SSRI don't do much, Cobenfy is promising. Involuntary commitment wouldn't be horrible if violating injections and ECT electrocution were voluntary.

It is more painful to treat someone who is homeless and mentally ill as opposed to just mentally ill.

People are on the street because they don't have homes. If they had homes, they would be less depressed, less drug addicted, and less destitute and less likely to cause public problems. So just give them homes.

A major upside: if you lose your job, you won't be at risk of becoming homeless! it would allow you to take a much stronger negotiating position with your boss. It would allow you to take a much stronger position with your landlord regarding rent increases too.

The thing you claim to care about (drug addicted or mentally ill people being a public menace) is wildly easier to combat when the people in question have a stable living situation.

The housing first initiative in Salt Lake City provides ample evidence that if people have a stable living situation it is way easier to get them to take their medication, get into rehab, keep them out of dangerous situations. It’s actually more cost effective in the long term to house the chronically homeless instead of kicking the can down the road.

If you actually care about what you claim to care about you should be supporting housing first.

That means 1) get people housed with minimal red tape and basically no conditions 2) treat mental health and drug addiction

The evidence is clear that it works and that it is more cost effective than dealing with the fallout when homeless people unravel.

Unfortunately politicians who had preconceived notions about this topic ignored the evidence and revoked funding for the program. Your statement that it is impossible to treat or cure mental illness and drug addiction (which the evidence does not support) places you in that camp. You, my friend are the worst part of the problem. Because the evidence exists to disprove your stance, but you hold a strong opinion without having bothered to check the science.

Finland has figured out a number of thing it seems other than homelessness.

Their education system is pretty interesting, and their policing system has some approaches to interacting with the community as well. If I can find the links I'll share.

Skepticism is fine, but it shouldn't be a reason to discount or dismiss something, nor does it mean to accept it. Take it in as a data point.

> It's nearly impossible to fix. The horrors of involuntary commitment vs. the horrors of not having involuntary commitment vs. the horrors of using the criminal justice system vs. the horrors of not using the criminal justice system.

I think, frankly, and I base this on experience with family undergoing involuntary commitment in Europe... we really are still a bit collectively traumatized or basing our takes on what happened prior here in the US from past abuse of involuntary commitment systems.

It can be compassionate. It can help people get psychiatric and psychological help they didn't know how to access. It can help get people back on their feet and transition them into a return to normalcy. It can work.

The Pandremix issue has lots of issues to fix as well that will probably never see the light of the day. Essentially those few hundred with Pandemrix-induced narcolepsy are now a permanently disabled minority without organized legal advocacy. The party-opposing party, that should not be opposing them, Pharmaceutical Injury Insurance Pool (LVP) has significant financial and legal resources. LVP has substantially broader access to archives and expert knowledge. The impaired functional capacity and financial position of those affected makes it difficult to advocate for their rights.

The state implemented the vaccination program and transferred responsibility to the insurance pool system with its own financial interests. The pool system determines assessment criteria and makes evaluations without external oversight. Initially, there was talk of "million-euro compensations." The government guaranteed to finance the remainder if pool funds were depleted.

Legal cases have been fought against LVP regarding time limits of confirmed cases. Compensations have remained a fraction of original expectations. Narcolepsy patients are too small a minority to influence Parliamentary politics or re-enter public discourse. This special group has been left alone to defend their rights within the pool system.

The compensations were based on Käypä Hoito Guidelines for accident injuries, which are unsuitable for narcolepsy: narcolepsy doesn't necessarily cause clear cognitive deficits despite its severity, and comparison to brain trauma is not medically possible. The drafters would probably agree if asked that it wasn't intended for this use. A person with narcolepsy can be formally capable of work, but this might consume all of their alert hours & energy, leaving nothing for actually having a life. The system may equate narcolepsy, in permanent damage, with injuries similar to a broken finger in workplace accidents, hence the permanent disability compensations are insufficient for dignified life.

The wage compensation issue is more significant. The determination basis for loss of earnings compensation is problematic as it's based on achieved education and work history, although the illness has impaired these opportunities. The same neurological illness produces different compensations depending on onset timing, as those with established careers may fare better than those who couldn't compete for university placement. This particularly affects those who became ill in childhood/youth, as it doesn't account for lost opportunities. In practice, even those from educated backgrounds with academic potential (e.g. top grades or plans for university before narcolepsy) may receive compensation based on average or low income.

Opportunity cost compensation appears unlikely. The state has not promoted reassessment of applicability of Käypä Hoito criteria.

There is insufficient monitoring of equality in compensation decisions and appeals, inadequate communication about compensations (the question whether all victims are even aware of their rights seems open), and questionable document management and decision-making transparency. LVP defines compensation terms, makes compensation decisions, and handles appeals, creating a conflict of interest as LVP has financial incentive for strict interpretation.

Permanent damage compensations are treated as earned income by Kela, requiring their use for basic living expenses, though they're meant as lifetime compensations for an incurable neurological illness.

(this is partly machine-translated from personal notes)

A lot of words to say that doing anything at all must be impossible.

Not understanding how homelessness (or poverty generally) leads to mental illness is remarkably disconnected.

And don’t “fix” the problem at the expense of the paycheque-to-paycheque lower-working class.

Otherwise it’s zero sum and you create a homeless for every homeless you remove and disincentivize work.

People hate om commie blocks but it was an excellent solution to mass produce affordable housing in war torn Europe. The free market is full of cheap mass produced stuff. Why can't housing be mass produced? Why are there not more economic options? It's almost always restrictive regulations that stops these solutions from happening.

I think the challenge is that some will use it as a jumping of point to change their lives and some will use it to stick to their poor lifestyle habits and expect the provider of the housing to provide free house cleaning, free maintenance and free meals and in exchange be a community nuisance.

The latter ruins it for the former.

As a taxpayer, I would be willing to provide free housing in a lower cost of living area, in exchange for the receiver maintaining the home, no issues with the law and perhaps helping others build their homes, etc.

Everyone wants to live in the centre of Helsinki, because why not?

I'd like to live in Honolulu.

> Yes, it would be very expensive. But you know what's even more expensive? The sum of everybody's lowered wages, bad bosses, fear for the future, fear of having kids and so on, due to the threat of homelessness.

I doubt your supposition. Once you create free housing you reduce your tax base. You are creating a positive feedback loop of costs, lost revenue, leading to more costs, leading to more lost revenue... and so on.

You've also not explored alternative means of solving those other problems on a more direct level or have any information as to what that might cost. You could just as well increase direct funding for small businesses and approach anti monopoly law with a renewed vigor.

To me it's putting a bandaid on your eye when you've cut your finger. So very nearly the right idea it's a little painful.

Quite an interesting perspective, sadly it’ll likely never get implemented in any capitalistic economy

What you're proposing is classical Soviet communism. Particularly Khrushchev era communism. Much have been said and written about it, if you're interested.

I get the impression "individual accommodations" were hotel rooms; and the goal was also to subsidize hotels that had no business due to the pandemic.

Housing homeless people in hotels is not sustainable. (It's also overkill, as adequate shelter doesn't need to be a motel with a queen bed. It can be a much smaller room and still be humane.)

And then we told ourselves it wasn't possible so we could sleep at night.

it was striking to see Hong Kong in the British-law phase.. there used to be social layers including homeless and "boat people" but the British changed that .. under the British law, every single person and every single place to sleep was counted, numbered, licensed and taxed.

When they refuse to go inside do you jail them? Some cities with big hearts have been through this before.

It's funny how every westerner visits Japan and comes home thinking we can "solve crime" or "solve homelessness" or "have clean subway stations."

Japan's culture is why those things are the way they are. It's not due to funding. It's because people raise their children differently than we do in the west. The family's obligations are also greater.

And, yes, there are homeless people in Japan. But they typically are invisible by choice because of their cultural norms around discretion.

How do you end homelessness, when some percent of homeless people will, if you give them a place to stay, smoke meth all day and make their apartment and nearby apartments health hazards?

Many drug addicts don't want to be addicted, and would try to go through treatment if provided. But some are inveterate, and don't want to quit. What do you do with them?

Japan has plenty of homeless people but you don't see them because they're staying in cybercafés.

US and Europe have different reasone for homelessnes. Give free houses in US and next day you will have +400mln people from South America. In EU (I can speak for Poland) most homeless have alcohol and violence problems - people removed from homes for domestic violence by court (divorce). You must be quite bad person if no one takes care of you, in a country with a) strong family tights and b) many people owning a home.

How could the United States end homelessness? It is a mix of federal government, state governments, and local/county/municipal governments. The level of government best suited to do the actual work is hamstrung... if any one city fixes homelessness (somehow), more homeless will show up. If they do that again for the new arrivals, more homeless show up.

The first to solve it is punished with tens of thousands of newly arriving homeless who, as you might imagine, will find a way to get there if it means not being homeless anymore. But budgets are finite and the cost per homeless must he higher than zero, but in a practical sense the number of homeless aren't entirely finite.

If you start from the other end, with the feds, then you might as well hold your breath. Homelessness is so far down the list of priorities, that even if it somehow did bubble to the top, the polarization in Congress will sabotage any effort, and we'll end up with boondoggles that both sides can criticize and that won't really help any homeless at all.

This isn't a choice being made, it's just the complexity of the real world that some are still blind to even after graduating college and (theoretically) turning into grownups.

There's actually a technical solution too, but since it's dry and boring, most leftists (and quite a few of the rightists) find it too boring to ever want to try. Obviously the solution is either love and compassion (from the left) or maybe "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" (from the right).

The US could end homelessness but would need to stop immigration and change the constitution which could force people in shelter. Not sure it's the outcome we all want.

There used to be homeless alcoholics living in shacks and WW1 bunkers in the forests around Helsinki. Many (most?) of them were WW2 veterans. Older kids still told stories about them in the 80s, but most of them had actually died or found shelter by then.

The winter climate is comparable to, even milder than, large parts of the US including large cities like Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis that have significant homeless populations.

Homeless people are not necessarily completely shelterless, in a survival sense. They're associated with tents for a reason.

It's funny I've considered going there when my life imploded. Just get dropped off and live there Venice beach but yeah I get how annoying that would be to a non-homeless.

I have family who are poor (3rd world) and I think about how it's fair for me to b here and they are over there but yeah etc etc idk. Why does it feel bad to be. I do help (virtue signal) donate but I'm also in a shit ton of debt but I'm not technically poor/homeless. I have a car/apt/toys. Still thinking about it.

Oh yeah giving money isn't a fix it turns out because people fight over it/demand more. Next thing you know everyone is your relative hunting you down online. My personal gmail chat pops up "hey man..."

It does piss me off when I pull up to a light and there's a guy right there with a sign. How do I know he's homeless? I'm coming out of a grocery store at night somebody's like "sir, sir, sir..." trying to get my attention. I guess it shouldn't be a problem to just hand em a dollar. But then they say "that's it?".

Again I donate to a local food shelter, NHA, etc... just funny is altruism real idk why do I feel annoyed (greed?). I can't even ask people for money without feeling shame but other people don't care. Alright rant over I am privileged I know.

I'm gonna live a life though, mid sports car, land, not give up. I'll continue to donate too whether in cash or open source work but first I have to get out of debt, been in debt for 15 years now crazy. That's why I have my tech job, drive for UE, donate plasma and freelance to speed run my debt off. Thankfully I'm single so it's only my own life I gotta worry about.

It's not going to stay common ground for very long if anyone can just set up camp there and claim it for themselves.

> Maybe if the cycle is broken right at the start, when one becomes homeless, it prevents some of the mental health issues and addiction issues that come from living without support for too long

What fraction of the homeless addicts or mentally ill started out that way?

> Both groups have people who want to be homeless, so they can be left alone

Why can't they be left alone in a home?

> I did not see anything about mental illness or addicts

Maybe it's not actually a problem. Maybe it's another way to promote fear, hate, division, and cynicism about social spending.

Probably close to zero people want to be homeless per se.

What happens is that people are unwilling or unable to accept the terms of housing offered, like for example strict sobriety, or not allowing pets. Family housing is also rare, and I don't think it's fair to say someone choosing to be homeless with their spouse over housed separately miles away from each other "wants to be homeless."

If people are consistently declining the aid we're offering, that's a problem we can address. It is our fault, not theirs.

So we build semi-automomous free zones, where the infrastructure is essentialy indistructable,anyone can get a lockable secure space, and the violent sociopaths, are picked off. Facets from other proven models could include, a work for drunks program, like in some german areas, they get to clean the streets they hang out on, and are a sort of invisible "watch". Free "heroine" , for any and all who check into a controlled access facility. The real ferrals are just a fact, but are very easy to spot so the threat level is lower, but as they dont have adequate shelter, see point #1, they congregate in more southerly areas, and or, get into trouble trying to survive in northern areas. I have lived on the edge, for most of my life, seen a lot of wild things, in a lot of different places, and the story is that people just want to be seen and accepted, there, in the moment. Those moments are impossible to predict or create with any kind of predictability or repeatability. All ww can do is build the places, where that can happen, or not, and its "even", everybody can walk away, If nothing works, then there is the road, and that needs to be ok, and no one is a "vagrant" as they got a place to go. nobody is stuck.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. From the article, basically no one was sleeping on the streets in Finland in 2020.

at least now they can't say there's no home for them, it's just choice - some prefer that way.

-40°C is extremely rare in Southern Finland where most people live. In Helsinki the average temperature is about -6°C in the coldest months of the year, and at worst it might drop down to around -15 to -25°C (depending on the year).

If you’re going to use -40, why include the “C”?

Phones are pretty cheap, and probably essential for finding work and staying in contact with family/other resources, and I imagine a homeless person has time more than anything else. I'm also a bit surprised at first when I see a post from someone is such a different economic situation here on HN but logically it makes sense. (I recall seeing an engineer in Palestine post in a recent Who wants to be hired? and I tread similar thoughts.)

I thought building houses was a skill lost to history, like Damascus steel!

I don't get the joke or are you actually suggesting a significant number of homeless people are so by choice?

Romania has very similar ethnically homogenous population at 89.3% [1] and I can definitely say that this factor does not directly lead to a high trust society. I suspect there are quite a few other countries with similar makeups that don't result in outcomes similar to Finland/Japan.

While homogeneity may play a factor I think it's dwarved by other things. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Romania

No idea how it's relevant. For example in USA, I bet the overwhelming majority of homeless are citizens born in USA, not immigrants.

In my central European country with high ethnic homogenity the unhoused are also stemming from majority population. There is a Roma minority who are often struggling with poverty but are rarely unhoused.

Finland was traditionally a very homogeneous society, and immigration before ~1990 was negligible. But then there was a burst of immigration from the former USSR and Somalia, followed by a gradual increase over the decades. And in 2023 (and likely in 2024), net immigration was >1% of the population and exceeded births.

This is extremely relevant. Finland is basically Sweden without mass migration. The cracks in our society that the multi-culti ideology has opened up is difficult for an American to comprehend, because you never experienced the benefits of a true monoculture.

> it's easier to have a high-trust society if you eschew immigration.

citation needed

So are there other techniques for fixing homelessness that work in these so-called "low-trust" societies?

Controversial, but worth considering. I believe societies have different capacities for assimilation (changing immigrants) and appropriation (changing themselves), with the hallmark of any era's great societies being their ability to maximise both.

That said, the evidence is mixed [1], with fairness and economic inequality [2][3] seeming to matter more than racial homogeneity. (Lots of tiny, racially-homogenous societies–high trust or not–bordering each other also have a one-way historical track record.)

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000169931772161...

[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/23324182

[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7454994/

> Worth pointing out that Finland is one of the most ethnically homogeneous societies in Europe - only ~10% of the population is of foreign origin and background

Meh. They've got two different official languages. It's not as ethnically uniform as a lot of other European countries.

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i think you've got it backwards- the xenophobia of so called 'high trust' bigots are holding back the global society of our future, and their low homelessness is in reality an unfair burden on other more troubled countries