[HN Gopher] Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe... ___________________________________________________________________ Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is failing Author : ashergill Score : 161 points Date : 2021-01-25 14:13 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.economist.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com) | jswizzy wrote: | Anyone who thinks that just giving the homeless shelter fixes the | problem doesn't understand the problem to begin with. | ashcza wrote: | I highly recommend listening to 99 Percent Invisible's new 5 | part series on homelessness in America. Saying shelter doesn't | fix the problem is misleading, as it is typically a required | component to solving other issues that person is facing. | | https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ | toomuchtodo wrote: | The evidence, from Utah (Salt Lake City also attempted and was | somewhat successful with Housing First) to Finland says | otherwise. Housing the homeless _is cheaper_ and gets them | stability to address the core issues (addiction, job placement, | etc) with social services (which is incredibly difficult when | folks are transient and sleeping rough). | | With that said: | | > Meanwhile, illegal immigration creates a homeless population | many countries are unwilling to house. That is sabotaging the | shift to housing first. | | You can't house everyone who comes to your country with no | means to support themselves. Resources are finite. | lostcolony wrote: | That same issue applies to different states. It always makes | me roll my eyes when conservative pundits point to blue | states' homelessness as a reason why socially liberal | policies fail; no, but social policies will attract people | needing them from anywhere accessible that doesn't have those | policies. Hence why it needs to be done at a national level. | Eridrus wrote: | Not to say the general approach is bad, but I think the cost | side is overplayed. It depends a lot on what the | cost/structure of your existing response is, and critically, | whether you can actually realize any savings after the shift. | Both because it is hard to reduce staffing/infrastructure, | but also because many costs are not actually born directly by | the city (eg medical costs are born by the hospitals). | [deleted] | cheph wrote: | > Not to say the general approach is bad, but I think the | cost side is overplayed. | | Not sure why I, as an immigrant to Europe myself, should | pay cover the cost for illegal aliens while I cannot | provide properly for my own relatives in my home country. | It is unconscionable. | Eridrus wrote: | We live in an imperfect world with many constraints and | trade-offs. Why did you have to emigrate, while others | were already born into lucky countries? Why are some | people denied the right to emigrate? | | Life is various shades of unfair and we're more likely to | make a better world if we optimize for well being rather | than fairness (of which there are multiple competing and | contradictory definitions). | cheph wrote: | > Why did you have to emigrate, while others were already | born into lucky countries? | | A lot of people worked very hard to make the place I | immigrated from the place it is today, most of them are | still there. No luck about it. | | > Why are some people denied the right to emigrate? | | As far as I know all EU countries give everyone equal | rights to immigrate. Maybe you should check your facts. | | > Life is various shades of unfair and we're more likely | to make a better world if we optimize for well being | rather than fairness | | How exactly is it optimizing for well being to ignore the | corruption, injustice and bad governance in Africa? | | Europeans should open their eyes, the world is collapsing | around them while they sign treaties with China which is | actively destroying Africa while committing genocide in | their own country - and Europe does not care. Russia is | busy oppressing their own people and it's neighbors while | Germany is building a pipeline to them. This behaviour of | Europe is pathetic cowardice, grow a backbone. Spending | my tax money on illegal immigrants does not make the | world fairer. | fredgrott wrote: | it's 3 areas: -income inequality -low cost housing supplies | -mental health -job inequality | | Finland seems to be tackling some of the others in some fashion | via their approach to democratic socialism government | initiatives. | jedimastert wrote: | No, but it's almost impossible to get out of homelessness | without it. It's really hard to do anything more with your day | if you have to spend most of it making sure you have enough | calories and a "safe" place to sleep. | | This doesn't fix everything, but there is a not-as-small-as- | you-might-think subset of people for whom the only reason they | continue to be homeless is they can't do anything other than | figure out what they're gonna eat that day | giantg2 wrote: | "for whom the only reason they continue to be homeless is | they can't do anything other than figure out what they're | gonna eat that day" | | I'm not sure I believe this. Why did they become homeless in | first place? With most there is an underlying issue. It might | be that they are a felon, addict, or other medical issue. | It's not that hard to ask for a job while also asking for | money or food. Especially if you're already going to food | establishment dumpster or begging outside of them. | | The person I know the best who homeless had a combination of | issues. He was in a coma and lost his job. He was also | required to pay child support and the bank account ran dry | during that time. A warrant was issued and he was arrested. | You can't find any "good" jobs with a record and warrants | being issued. He basically gave up on the system and finds it | easier to just let family support him. | jedimastert wrote: | > Why did they become homeless in first place? | | I think you are vastly underestimating how easy it is to go | from poor to homeless. There was a ~3 year period of my | life where all it would have taken is one bad month. Just | one. And it wasn't for lack of trying, or because of | laziness or mental illness. Just real bad luck and starting | out in a not-great place within a not-great system. | | Homelessness is a hole that is easy to fall into and damn | hard to crawl out of, and not to be insensitive but the | assumptions you're making are part of the problem. | | When you assume that homelessness is fundamentally caused | by a fault in the person, that person is basically dammed | to stay homeless. The things you say here are the same | reasons people give to not hire a homeless person. "They | must either be crazy or lazy, neither of which is an | employee I want". | | That's not to mention the fact that there are a surprising | number of homeless people that _do_ have jobs, but just don | 't make enough money to save up to get anything better | (which, yes, is a failing of the system). Most people don't | realize this if they haven't lived it, but being poor is | _very expensive_. | | > He basically gave up on the system and finds it easier to | just let family support him. | | Some people don't have a family that could support another | person. | giantg2 wrote: | "When you assume that homelessness is fundamentally | caused by a fault in the person, " | | When did I say that? The stuff I listed, like addiction, | other medical issues, and the failings of the system | aren't personal faults. | | "I think you are vastly underestimating how easy it is to | go from poor to homeless." | | I've made no such claim. My claim is that finding food is | probably not the main problem keeping homeless people | homeless. You're talking about poor -> homeless, I'm | talking about other direction of homeless -> poor (in | response to the parent comment). Food may be a component, | but I think it's more likely issues in the system like | not hiring people with a record, medical or addiction | issues, or just not being able to afford housing due to | lack of good employment, property taxes. These are quite | expensive compared to food and lack the level of charity | and government support that is given to food (SNAP, WIC, | food pantries, etc), not to mention individuals are more | likely to give someone a meal than a place to stay or a | job. | devoutsalsa wrote: | There are a lot of reasons to be homeless and not want to stay | in a homeless shelter. A big one is security. When I was | homeless and learning to code, I couldn't afford to replace my | laptop. People told me that if I stayed in a homeless shelter, | there was a good chance my laptop would be stolen. I chose not | to stay in one for that reason alone. | | A few years later, I offered to let a homeless coding student | stay with me for a couple weeks while she got housing lined up. | She didn't have one of her own, so I gave her my old MacBook | Air. She made arrangements to stay in a shelter, left my place, | and her laptop was stolen within a week. | | Safety & security matter, and any solution that is going to | effectively address homelessness needs to take this into | account. | dbattaglia wrote: | That's kind of a strong statement to make without some | explanation. I'm curious, what is the core of the problem you | are referencing that free shelter doesn't "fix"? Mental health, | addiction, something else entirely? | porb121 wrote: | There is outstanding evidence that giving the homeless shelter | does in fact fix the problem. | | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqK... | throwaway2a02 wrote: | Could you be a bit more specific? People end up homeless | because they are cut from society, have no social support to | fall back to, no way of supporting themselves. Most commonly | they get to that situation due to mental illness and | addiction/substance abuse is an ever-present comorbidity with | that. | | But the fact is, not having a shelter, running water, a way to | cover their basic needs is what amplifies their suffering and | dispairs to level where they simply can't get back on their | feet. They can't get a job if you smell, your clothes are dirty | and you're desperate and hungry. A shelter is a necessary | condition I think for getting out of that cycle, and thus a | very important first step. | exDM69 wrote: | The model used in Finland is anything but "just giving the | homeless a shelter". It's accompanied by a lot of social work, | together with medical, mental and substance abuse care. | | The reason for providing housing (not just a shelter, although | those exist too) is that social work and care are ineffective | when a person is homeless. When someone spends all their energy | on staying warm, clean, safe and fed, they are unable to help | themselves to a better life. | | Providing housing was found to be more effective than adding | the same amount of funding to social and medical programs. | | Extensive research has been done with this, I'm sure you can | find some in English language too if you find the article too | hard to believe. | usr1106 wrote: | Well, there are fewer homeless in Finnish cities than in many | other European big cities. Note that there are only 5 cities in | Finland that are big enough for homeless people. I don't think | homeless people live in small towns anywhere in Europe. | | On the other hand a Finnish newspaper wrote just yesterday[1] | that the amount of street children (teenagers mostly) is | increasing all the time and nobody really cares. The phenomenon | goes mostly unreported, because according to the law it's | impossible to happen. Authorities would be obliged to take care, | in reality they are incapable. Mostly understaffed and to some | degree also incompetent. | | [1] Don't remember which one, read 3 of them. | eulenteufel wrote: | I come from a German town with ~25.000 People, far away from | any major city and there definitely are homeless people. It's | not a lot in comparison to big cities like Berlin, but they do | exist. | Cloudef wrote: | Note that the "homeless" people in Finland are mainly people who | refuse to accept support from the social welfare, this is because | they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and rent. | The social welfare eventually suggests a different system for | such people: pay the rent for them and give a special card that | can be used for anything except alcohol and cigarette. If the | people keep refusing that other option, then they went homeless | on their own accord and keep spending the welfare on alcohol and | living on the streets. Such people are very rare in Finland in | reality however, but they do exist. | | There is also one woman [1] who for whatever reason chooses to | live homeless with bunch of luggage. She doesn't drink at all, | and keeps moving from town to town with all her luggage, by | walking. | | Here's also a discussion about the Roma beggars you see in | Helsinki streets. [2] | | 1: https://shl.fi/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_2935.jpg | | 2: | https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/79mqjs/question_ab... | | While giving people who can't afford the food or housing, the | food and housing mainly has upsides. It also has problem of | artificially inflating housing and rent prices. Especially in the | capital where most career opportunities are. (Helsinki is very | expensive place to live) | jeofken wrote: | To be fair to the reputation of Romanians on HN, the beggars | and squatters around Finland, Norway, and Sweden are not ethnic | Romanians even if they often are born there, but come from the | Zigeuner/Gypsy/Roma people. | [deleted] | ido wrote: | Investigating how Romanians often think and talk about the | Roma people in their country may be more harmful to their | reputation than thinking the beggars are non-Roma Romanians. | Mediterraneo10 wrote: | Things are more complicated than that. Romania is home to | more than one Roma people. The Roma who go to Finland for | organized begging are almost exclusively from the south of | the country. They can actually seem quite foreign to | Romanians from e.g. parts of Transylvania. There, the local | Roma are often associated with different ways of making a | living than begging, and speak a different set of languages | preferentially. Some ethnic Romanians from Transylvania may | be very tolerant about their local Roma community, but feel | that those particular Roma people from particular counties | are ruining things for everyone. Even Transylvanian Roma | people can feel that way about the Roma from elsewhere. | [deleted] | oblio wrote: | I don't think it's fair to single us out, though. This | social problem, integration, is present in almost exactly | the same way in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Serbia. To a | lesser degree it's also present in Spain from what I know. | | It's far from a simple problem. As the Finns are | discovering. | ido wrote: | True, this is widespread and not unique to Romania. | Mediterraneo10 wrote: | Finland is home to a centuries-old Roma community that | arrived via Sweden. They too are seen as abusing social | services and not integrating, the same general | stereotypes as in southern Europe. (Members of this | community can often be identified in Helsinki from their | distinctive clothing, the women wear traditional skirts.) | | So, Finns are already aware that Roma populations often | live in tension with the major ethnicity of a country. | However, the confusion about the ethnic makeup of Romania | along with other Balkan countries persists due to the | coincidentally similar names for these ethnicities, and | lack of interest among the Finnish population about | educating themselves about a region that seems far away | and to which very few go to on holiday. | oblio wrote: | True. I checked and Helsinki is as far from Munich as it | is from Bucharest, to choose a semi-random comparison | point. | | I guess perception will shift as these regions become | more touristic. | Blikkentrekker wrote: | I have read stories about almost any European country wherein | it is claimed that homelessness is a choice, and that there are | facilities that the homeless aren't utilizing, because they | praefer to the homeless or are plain stupid. | | In many of those cases the actual situation is more complicated | and the actual protocol is so involved and complicated that it | is very hard for a homeless man to research. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | I find it almost incomprehensible the first time sometimes | told me (in the UK) they were going to sleep on the street | because the shelter didn't allow drugs. I don't think they | were a particularly special case. | | Victims of circumstance to some extent, but not stupid nor | really living their preferred life I'd wager. | | I suspect you need a stable caring society for a couple of | generations and still there will be some outliers. A worthy | cause to address though. | ogre_codes wrote: | Many homeless reject shelters because they would have to give | up much of their personal possessions, can't have a pet, live | under tight restrictions, and deal with theft from other | homeless people in the shelter. | | Giving people small, secure apartments would solve many of | these issues along with many emergency hospital visits and | many other issues. | malcolmhere wrote: | Many shelters in the US are run be religious organizations | and discriminate against gay people, too. This is | particularly a problem because LGBTQ make up a sizeable | chunk of homeless youth (think: kids getting kicked out by | parents). | eznzt wrote: | What is your source for that? Also, how do those shelters | know the guy is gay? They have gaydars at the entrance? | BitwiseFool wrote: | There are absolutely _some_ homeless people who choose to | reject housing assistance and shelter programs. I know | because I did some volunteering to help the homeless and met | a handful of individuals that were happy to accept donations | but refused to be committed to any program. They refused to | have rules imposed on them by the shelters and preferred the | freedom of doing as they please. One of these individuals has | been homeless since the late 80 's and seems quite content | with his lifestyle. I'm not claiming this is typical, but | there are certainly more people like him out there. | 1024core wrote: | > Such people are very rare in Finland in reality however, | | Given the severity of Finnish winters, I'm not surprised. | | Try a similar approach in, say, Hawaii or the Bahamas, and see | how many homeless you'll see roaming around. | missedthecue wrote: | We have real life data. Cities in California are spending | north of $50,000 a year per homeless person (higher than | finland's median income!) and the problem is still as bad as | ever. The climate is also dry and warm 330 days a year. | GekkePrutser wrote: | With that kind of spending, how can it be that homeless | people have trouble finding shelters? Sounds like a lot of | that money is going to middlemen and outsourcing companies | than the actual people that need it. | renewiltord wrote: | Unless things changed since I last looked, that number is | obtained by taking the budget and dividing by the number | of people still homeless. | | So, for instance, if you had 100 potholes and paid $1 | million to fix 99 of them, leaving a single pothole, this | statistic would read: you spent $1 million per pothole. | eindiran wrote: | You can use other metrics (eg the NHIP count[0]), but | they point to the same thing. Under the NHIP count | metric, SF is doing better than most metropolitan areas | in the US, but even with huge spending on the problem, | the number of homeless people continues to rise year | after year. The per-capita count of number of | successfully sheltered homeless people in SF (per city | resident) is the highest in the country, but even still, | I see dozens of completely unsheltered people walking to | Bart from my apartment. | | Eg Chicago winters are very hard to live through if you | don't have stable access to warm housing, and the West | coast offers a reprieve from that. | | [0] https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/4/21152501/san- | francisco-homele... | jandrese wrote: | I wonder if any of the factor is that affordable housing | in SF is extremely difficult to find? Especially if you | don't have access to a vehicle for commutes and have to | find housing in an area well served by public transit? | danielheath wrote: | Lots of reasons. A short list includes: | | * Shelters not allowing pets - many would rather remain | homeless than give up their dog * Shelters not allowing | drugs * Social services officers looking too much like | cops (many homeless have had bad enough experiences with | cops to keep them away from anyone cop-like) * Spending | on 'discomfort' measures (eg deliberately-hostile | architecture to discourage people from being homeless) * | Effective mitigations being politically unpopular. | | For instance: cold-calling people who have just separated | from their spouse to offer counseling substantially | reduces the number of people you have to lift out of | homelessness at very little cost. However, "free therapy" | is a wildly unpopular suggestion in the USA. | theshrike79 wrote: | 99 Percent Invisible had a great episode on hostile urban | architecture: | https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unpleasant-design- | hos... | ACow_Adonis wrote: | except we also have additional data from overseas. | Australia has comparatively mild winters and my family is | originally from Queensland where some of the "worst" towns | for unemployment and disadvantage clearly have a bit of a | "paradise" effect (that is to say, if you're going to live | on unemployment, you might as well live where there's good | weather, fishing and swimming year round and prices are a | bit cheaper than the urban centres). | | Australia does provide public housing, but I'll take a stab | and say it's cut back from its peak amount. | | When you travel through California (and the US in general), | i'd estimate homelessness and poverty to be at least an | order of magnitude worse in the US (I want to hesitate to | say two orders of magnitude worse) compared to anything I | see at home. Clearly there's something about society and/or | the structure of social safety nets that has a real and | measurable effect on poverty and homelessness overall. | | / before someone jumps onto Google to try to disprove me: | I've been to both countries (several times in fact), and | worked with both homelessness and official national | statistics. One of the things internet pundits | misunderstand is the definition and measures of | homelessness/poverty between the two countries: I think my | estimate is pretty fair napkin math, it might be a 4 or 5 | multiple instead, but I think we're quibbling by that | point. | benlm wrote: | https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/culture/article/2017 | /07... | | "Homelessness then, in Australia, is more than lacking a | roof over your head, it is also the absence of those | features associated with "home": permanence, security, | and the freedom to come and go." | | "If the world were to accept Australia's definition and | include everyone with inadequate shelter, the number | would exceed 1.6 billion - roughly 20 percent of the | population. Also excluded from official figures are the | world's 65 million displaced refugees in temporary | accommodation." | SpicyLemonZest wrote: | It sounds like you're aware that, according to official | statistics, homelessness is higher per capita in | Australia than in California or the US as a whole. I'm | open to the idea that this might be due to definitional | or measurement problems, but you've gotta explain what | those problems are, not just assert that they must exist. | | The obvious alternative explanation is that Americans | might simply be less tolerant of measures to decrease the | visibility of homeless. | GekkePrutser wrote: | This is what I thought... I suppose living on the street in | such a climate can be deadly even. Definitely reduce life | expectancy. | jacquesm wrote: | It is. Same in Canada. Typically in April a number of | bodies turn up that were buried in snowbanks. | jillesvangurp wrote: | I lived in Helsinki for a while. It's not a great place to be | homeless because despite recently mild winters, it's just not a | nice place to be living outside when most of the year it can | drop to freezing temperatures (or well below) at night. Having | people on the street freezing to death in the middle of the | winter is not something that is very practical. And of course | the whole system ensures that people are mostly taken care off | regardless of their issues (alcohol, drugs, psychological | issues, etc.). Food, shelter, medical care etc. are easily | accessible. | iSnow wrote: | >because they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on | food and rent. | | After a certain point, alcoholism is no longer a choice or | preference, it's a debilitating disease. And before that point, | it's frequently self-medication for untreated mental problems. | Consider this: alcohol is the only mood-elevating drug sold | freely, of course a percentage people will jump on it if they | have massive problems. | | Not going to criticize the Finnish system as I know nothing | about it, but probably the only way to get to those people is | give them homes, food and clothing and try (again and again) to | get them to reduce alcohol intake and/or get psychiatric | treatment - and accept you won't be able to get all of them to | accept that. | bzb6 wrote: | They already have all of that. The next step is forcing them, | which is unpalatable as you can imagine. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | Mood-elevating? Isn't it the opposite. | | Interestingly, perhaps, I rather feel it might only be | poverty - the need to afford food instead - that's kept me | from affording enough alcohol to abuse. I'm in a much better | place now. | | The point is that "give poor people food, clothing, and a | home" is not an answer in general. One needs people who are | equipped and who care for you ... finding people who actually | care is beyond democratic governance. | ashtonkem wrote: | Alcohol is a central nervous depressant, but its affect on | mood varies wildly from person to person and instance to | instance. | Delk wrote: | While there's truth to that, it's worth noting that most of | those homeless people are suffering from ill mental health | and/or substance dependence. | | You make it sound like they just shrugged and decided that | that's the life they want, but I don't think that's how people | end up homeless. There are decisions involved, but they're | probably not quite as voluntary as that. | Cloudef wrote: | Those people are given help, but if they refuse that, there's | nothing you can really do. People are only forced if they | start being dangerous to other people. | justin66 wrote: | > People are only forced if they start being dangerous to | other people. | | I assume this isn't really true, and that the standard in | Finland is that they're institutionalized if they're a | danger to other people _or themselves._ The latter part is | tricky, though. A person who is clearly in danger of | killing themselves with a razor blade can be committed. A | person who is in danger of drinking themselves to death on | the sidewalk, perhaps not. | wsinks wrote: | For the record, welcome to San Francisco. (a joke, it's the | similar here) | Delk wrote: | I'm not saying you can necessarily do anything; in some | cases you can't. I'm just saying that things might not be | under those people's voluntary control and decision-making | either once mental health issues or substance abuse | problems go far enough. | wing-_-nuts wrote: | I'm not familiar with Finland but to those people have | access to mental health services? In the US, a lot of folks | who are addicted to drugs and alcohol are written off as | moral failures when in reality, the drugs and alcohol are | simply used to self medicate and numb the pain of their | lives. | | I'm not saying there shouldn't be _any_ accountability for | addicts, but the fact that we completely write them off as | a society says more about us than it does about them. | Cloudef wrote: | Yes, they have access to mental health services, and even | rehabilitation services, but again only if you agree to | it. | Delk wrote: | They do have access, at least in theory and to some of | the services. | | But when people do become homeless in Finland, their | problems usually run quite deep already, and they may | just be quite difficult to help. | | I don't know if this is true but I've understood that in | the U.S. homelessness might more often be a result of | just financial downfall, while in Finland homelessness is | very strongly connected to mental illness, substance | dependence, or both [1]. Those people have pretty much | lost control of having a normal life, or perhaps they | never had one. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be | helped, but it does mean helping them is likely to be an | uphill battle. | | Drug addiction does get judged harshly by the society in | general; alcohol abuse is likely to be swept under the | rug unless it causes obvious problems e.g. at work, but | if it does, it gets judged as well, although not quite as | harshly as drug abuse. I'd expect most social workers and | medical professionals who work with the homeless to know | better than to see addiction as just a moral failure, | though, so the problem may rather be that it's quite | difficult to treat people who have a multitude of | problems that run deep. Health care professionals might | be wary of committing limited public resources in cases | if they don't expect it to bear fruit, so the mental | health services might be limited to emergency care and | general assistance by social workers. | | I'm not intimately familiar with how those services work, | though, so they might be more extensive than I think. | | [1] That is, at least among the native population; | another visible group of homeless are poor immigrants | living in the streets. They probably just wanted a better | life in a richer country or something, and their reasons | for vagrancy are probably different. | WarOnPrivacy wrote: | In the US, most circumstances resulting in homelessness | are imminently solvable. | | However, there is little community will to address those | circumstance and a great deal of political pressure | against aiding vulnerable adults. | | To see strong examples political resistance, suggest | moving folks in prison for low-level, mentally ill | related crimes into in-patient facilities - redirecting | per-person funding from prison budgets to pay for their | care. | watwut wrote: | Some mental issues make you basically unwilling to accept | that you have issues. And plus, we can't really fix | mental health. It is not like everything would be | curable. | darth_avocado wrote: | > People are only forced if they start being dangerous to | other people | | Really this definition needs to be more strict. In San | Francisco, you could be drugged up, throw needles and | broken alcohol bottles on the street, openly defecate, and | this behavior is still considered not dangerous. | | A better way to deal with this is to allow people to reject | welfare, but if they do, they still need to live as a | decent member of the society. No littering, no public | nuisance (shouting, spitting, harassing people), | maintaining hygiene (no public urination/defecation, no | risk of disease transmission etc.), no permanent | encroachment of public property and so forth. Otherwise, it | just ends up in a slippery slope that creates a sinkhole of | billions of dollars in costs to the economy, at the expense | of others. | deadbunny wrote: | > A better way to deal with this is to allow people to | reject welfare, but if they do, they still need to live | as a decent member of the society. | | And if they refuse to "live as a decent member of | society"? | core-questions wrote: | This is the hardest question. | | I make a point of talking to people across the political | spectrum and I have heard all kinds of answers, from | things which are basically "stick them in camps" (from | both left and right-wing people!) to "ignore them" to | various rehabilitation approaches. | | My view is that we should step back, and consider what it | is that we, the folks who are the so-called decent | members of society, want. | | The city I live in has a big decaying area next to the | downtown core, like many cities of a million or more do | these days. It waxes and wanes, right now in particular | in the wake of Covid it's very bad. Crime, needles, | sketchy people, it's horrible. The thing is, these are | neighbourhoods that should be nice; they should be full | of young families living a walkable distance from | downtown, not crackheads and needles. | | I get that, as decent human beings, we owe each other a | fundamental level of dignity. I am fine with efforts to | feed, clothe, and house those who cannot do it | themselves. But why does this need to extend to giving | them a huge swathe of land, land that is potentially much | nicer than any place I will ever live in, for them to | ruin? | | But what can we do - lock them up? Restrict their | fundamental freedoms? Can we _really_ just ignore them | and accept sketchy, scary, crime-ridden cities? | throwawayboise wrote: | Then take them out of society. Same as any other person | who persistently refuses to obey laws. | deadbunny wrote: | From the GP: | | > Otherwise, it just ends up in a slippery slope that | creates a sinkhole of billions of dollars in costs to the | economy, at the expense of others. | | So given that is it better to try and help them | reintegrate with society or do we just lock them up and | forget about them? Or worse? | mewpmewp2 wrote: | You could try to prevent people from reaching such state in | the first place, for future occurrences. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | And still allow them the civil liberties expected in a | democracy? I'm honestly not sure that's possible. Self- | destruction seems almost like a human right. | teekert wrote: | It's pretty much the same in the Netherlands, given enough | issues and after failing to get you back to work you | basically land in a situation where the state pays for your | existence though direct money and a lot of subsidies (ie | when the stress of work cause a relapse in your drinking | habits and it happened time and time again over the past 10 | years). | | It is thus very difficult to understand why there are | homeless people. But I once went (with work) on a trip with | a homeless person (this is a charity, you pay and homeless | people take you one trip and talk about their lives). And | indeed the people on the streets always have psychological | issues. Extreme ADHD, abused as a child, depression but | just a little bit to afraid to die to really end it. If | they want help it is there, always. Homeless shelters, | places to get a postal address for free to apply for | subsidies and minimal social income etc. But some just go | crazy while waiting or go crazy while sleeping with other | people in one room. Or they walk barefoot in the winter | until their feet are so rotten that they can't walk | anymore, too afraid to get help because they believe help | means they will be abused again or mind altered or | something strange. Most of them are constantly afraid and | not a danger to others, more like very shy animals afraid | of other humans, so they retreat and suffer while their | fear of death keeps them alive, just barely. | | One woman we spoke to had her child murder her other child | and she just started drinking. How can you help such a | woman? So much pain. | GekkePrutser wrote: | Exactly, it's not a choice. | | Also, I think the current method of making alcohol really | expensive through levies is not working. It only makes | homeless addicted people poorer and more likely to turn | to crime. | | The rest of us don't give a shit how much it costs, we | don't use much of it anyway. The price is never a factor | in getting addicted or getting off it. | | All it is is the government profiteering of people who | can't help themselves. | [deleted] | guerrilla wrote: | How does that woman carry all the stuff from one city to | another? Does she take buses and they just wait for her to load | it all? | Cloudef wrote: | She walks with all that luggage. She sets up the luggage in | queue, and takes the last luggage, brings it to the front, | and repeats it until she gets to the next town. | guerrilla wrote: | Wow, that's a trip. Is there somewhere I can read more | about this? I'll google translate it if all you got is in | Finnish but I can read Swedish too. | | Edit: Reverse image search tells me her name is Laukku- | Leena. https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/b225828d-c1b1-40b | 5-b7b1-a... | Cloudef wrote: | Yes, googling laukku-leena will get you some news and | forums where people discuss her whereabouts. Not sure if | you can find any non finnish articles however. | flagrant wrote: | > Note that the "homeless" people in Finland are mainly people | who refuse to accept support from the social welfare, this is | because they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food | and rent. | | When you posted this hateful nonsense, did you think nobody | would bring you up on it? Can you provide anything to back up | this assertion? | sharpneli wrote: | How is this hateful nonsense? Every citizen is eligible for | that support. Do you perhaps live here so you can say it's | not true? | | Sure it's not always perfect, errors in bureaucracy happens | sometimes but getting social security is the default. If you | accept it you get a house. | flagrant wrote: | Without evidence, he stated that all homeless people in | Finland are homeless because they would "prefer to get | drunk". I don't think it's incorrect to describe this as | hateful, because it's very clearly informed by a bias | against homeless people rather than any real evidence. | | This is the equivalent of jumping into a discussion to say | that Black people are poor because they "keep buying | cellphones". It's not a serious intellectual comment, it's | cloaked hatred. | Supermancho wrote: | > it's cloaked hatred. | | Homelessness causes suffering which is usually self- | treated with substance abuse. This is not a hateful | commentary. | | I'm not sure how a blanket characterization equates to | "hate", when it's a lazy attribution due to indifference. | Maybe disdain is the appropriate term. | flagrant wrote: | It ascribes a characterisation to homeless people (that | they would prefer to get drunk than have a home) that | there is simply no evidence for. The comment blames | homeless people for their own destitution purely based on | the commenter's preconceived bias against homeless | people. | Delk wrote: | Cloudef's comment might make it seem like it's | predominantly a voluntary decision by the homeless, and I | disagree with that. AFAIK most homeless people in Finland | do have a substance abuse problem, though. | | Edit: What actually might make this more interesting is | that this could be how things are regarding homelessness | in Western Europe in general, more or less, not just in a | single country. I mentioned this in another comment, but | AFAIK living in the streets in Finland, and quite | possibly in Northern and Western Europe in general, is | rather strongly connected to mental health issues and | substance abuse problems. That doesn't mean that the | homeless should be vilified, as both of those are | illnesses and largely not a voluntary choice, but it | could be something that's different about homelessness in | the U.S. and in Western/Northern Europe. | sharpneli wrote: | He said mainly. No all. | | You do understand that everyone gets social security as | money if they need. The problems happen if they are | unable to use that money to pay the rent. And yes indeed | the main reason is some sort of intoxicant use, as they | rather get more stuff than use the money for rent. | | Legal debts are also not a reason not to pay rent, as one | is protected from repaying them when it's about | essentials. So that doesn't count either. As long as | you're able to push the pay button in your online bank | you use the default system. Only when that's not possible | do you fall into the provided housing system. And not | surprisingly drug use is a major reason for not pushing | that pay button but rather taking the money and using it | elsewhere. Does that honestly surprise you? What else | could it even be? | | That's why we have the second option with food stamps and | provided housing. It's not perfect as people elsewhere | have stated the obvious "Hey want to buy 20e foodstamp | for 10e?". But still they get it. | flagrant wrote: | I'll be happy to retract the "hateful" comment if anyone | can provide evidence that "people are mainly homeless in | Finland because they would prefer to get drunk". | sharpneli wrote: | We use two terms for homeless here. Strictly speaking if | we just use the term homeless you're correct. 79% of them | are not like that [ARA Asunnottomat 2019]. They're people | like students bunking in a friends bed without a valid | address or other short term issues, like the social | security making a mistake, but they're eventually | rectified. This means the homelessness has lasted for | less than a year. | | 21% are long term homeless. And that's what people | generally mean when they collegially use the term | homeless. That's defined as homeless that has lasted for | more than a year and has significant social or health | component, such as substance abuse or mental illness. The | thing about mental illness is that there is also | treatment for them. The solution is different for them as | for the substance abusers. | | If you ever see a Finn begging it's pretty much always an | alcoholic who wants more beer. That's because the | mentally ill cannot really beg as they're either | receiving treatment or if they have unfortunately slipped | trough the cracks of the system they're also unable to | beg for any extended period. | | As for the scale of this problem. 2019 there were 961 | persons listed in the long term homeless category. That's | out of a population of 5.518 million in 2019. That's | 0.017% of the whole population. Also, even out of them | 584 live with someone, just not with an official address. | They wouldn't be counted as homeless in US. | | The actual amount of people in street on that category | was 177. That's 0.003% of the population. | [deleted] | leesalminen wrote: | Here ya go [0] https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle | /10138/220951/Mort... | | Check out page 845 showing death by alcohol poisoning is | 5x higher in the homeless population of Finland than the | whole of the country. | | FWIW, and anecdotally, my ancestry is Finnish and we are | known for having issues with alcohol. The majority of my | extended family has drinking issues. Within our Finnish- | American community, it's believed that Finns have some | sort of gene that pre-disposes us to drink to excess. | flagrant wrote: | Thanks, but I didn't ask for evidence that "alcohol | poisoning is 5x higher in the homeless population", I | asked for evidence that "people are mainly homeless in | Finland because they would prefer to get drunk." | leesalminen wrote: | Well, that's all you're going to get out of me. I gave | you a 30 second google search. Have a great day! | Cloudef wrote: | https://ysaatio.fi/en/housing-first-finland there's no | extensive graphs, but this page mentions it briefly. | There's also been some freelancer yle documents covering | up some homeless people that mainly refuse the social | benefits to get more money for their daily drinking. [1] | | 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08FET347Tx4 | flagrant wrote: | This does not support your claim. It's pretty clear that | you didn't have the evidence before you made the claim, | and you don't have it now. | bzb6 wrote: | Are you American? | flagrant wrote: | No. | fsloth wrote: | Uh, no. I'm finnish. You go to social security and they | fix you with an apartment. It _is_ mostly due to the | decisions of the homeless that they remain homeless. | leesalminen wrote: | No, the poster did not say "all" homeless people are | alcoholics. He said that is "mainly", meaning most, but | certainly not all. | | Just so we can all be as pedantic as humanly possible, | here. | flagrant wrote: | Sure, fine. It's still a hateful, unevidenced comment | about homeless people that can't be justified. | Jochim wrote: | I can see people taking issue with the word "prefer" in | relation to getting drunk. It makes the tone of the OP seem | dismissive of the fact that by the point you're putting | alcohol/drugs before shelter and food you're no longer | expressing a preference but rather a symptom of mental | illness: addiction, depression, or otherwise. | renewiltord wrote: | This is literally what people say about San Francisco as well: | "They don't want the help" etc. etc. It's like the same thing. | ogre_codes wrote: | Except in San Fransisco there are tens of thousands of | homeless. The entire country of Finland has a fraction of | that number. | | There are indeed _some_ homeless who would prefer to be on | the street. There are also tens of thousands who are mentally | ill, or just incapable of taking care of rent / electric/ | water, etc. | Mediterraneo10 wrote: | > the Romanian beggars you see in Helsinki streets. | | While Finns tend to use the term "Romanian beggars", this can | be inaccurate and misleading. I understand that this confusion | could have arisen because "Romani people" and "Romanian people" | sound similar in Finnish and some of them are from Romania. | However, many of them come from Bulgaria as well - a very large | community comes from the Bulgarian town of Pleven seasonally | each year. | | FWIW, the ethnicity names "Romani" and "Romanian" are not | actually etymologically related, it is only a coincidence that | they sound similar. You would think that after a decade-plus | now of having Romani migrants very visible in the Helsinki city | center, people could have learned a little more about who they | are, and what drives them to make the long journey to Finland. | tartoran wrote: | The Romani, also known as Gypsies are quite often of Romanian | citizenship and they seem to disintegrate as a migrating | people. During communisms in Romania there were efforts to | integrate them. I had 2 "gypsies" in my class and they were | quite intelligent and studious. The situation has changed a | bit but I've heard a lot of Romanian Romani have left Romania | to go to Western European countries but the carnage and | destruction they did there made a really bad name for | Romanians in general and Romanians started to be confused | with Romani. | Cloudef wrote: | Thanks, I edited my post. | empiricus wrote: | small addition which should clarify some more the issue: | romani == gypsy | ido wrote: | At least in the German speaking countries the word Gypsy | ("Zigeuner" in German) is considered a racial slur | similarly (if not quite as strongly) ill-considered in | usage as N*gger is in English. There aren't a lot of Romani | in the US, which I think is why Americans aren't aware this | is a word you should avoid (but I'm pretty sure it is also | considered a slur in English in Britain and Ireland). | Nimitz14 wrote: | Lol that's not true. | ido wrote: | Which part? I've lived in Vienna and then Berlin since | 2005 and have heard multiple times that you should say | Roma & Sinti because Zigeuner is a slur. | | In the press, literature and academia you will generally | not find the term Zigeuner in referring to the people | (but again Roma or Roma & Sinti) if it was written in the | last 20+ years. | Merem wrote: | Never heard of "Zigeuner" being considered a racial slur. | I've usually heard it/hear it when it comes to certain | people (actually, two varieties even - one tied to the | "Zirkus" and the other one being a group of | "Landstreicher" basically) but that's not tied to an | ethnicity or whatever. | | A more prominent example would be the word "Neger" where | the media tells us it's a terrible word, insulting, | racial slur etc etc, yet however, it is used by normal | people in a conversation without any issues. It's funny | how irrational media (and some crazies) get, ignoring all | context, how something and with what intention something | is said. There is always a stark contrast between that | and actual real life. I, for one, like to eat my | "Negerkuss". | rendall wrote: | It's pretty common knowledge to be a slur in the US too | mbg721 wrote: | That varies a lot regionally. Plenty of people use | "gipped" for "ripped off", and "Zigeuner Schnitzel" is on | the menu at US German-cuisine restaurants. For once, it's | us who haven't caught up with the magical outrage words. | ido wrote: | I'm sure you wouldn't consider it a magical outrage word | if you were in the outgroup in your country and the word | was used to describe your ethnicity in a usually negative | way. | mbg721 wrote: | I'd be unhappy, but I'd much rather fix the outgroup part | than ban the word. | ido wrote: | I'm sure the Romani would prefer to fix discrimination | and generational poverty but you can do that while also | asking people to not use their name as a curse word (and | also it's not really being fixed). | Mediterraneo10 wrote: | In Western Europe there have been movements to avoid | using the local equivalent of the term "gypsy", and these | have seen some success. However, in the Balkan countries | these movements have had little impact, even among the | Roma themselves. | | There is a small Roma intelligentsia, university-educated | and aware of those international trends, who welcomes the | usage of "Roma (and Sinti)" instead of the traditional | word. Among most Roma, however, it is often the case that | if you use the term "Roma" while speaking with them, they | will correct you and say "Don't call me that, I'm a | <local word equivalent to 'gypsy'>". | | Note also that in the Balkans, the Roma generally prefer | to maintain their own language rather secret, for in- | group use only. I wouldn't be surprise if this extended | even to their ethnonym, and when outsiders say "Roma" | this sounds like those outsiders are appropriating their | word. | mbg721 wrote: | In the SW US, there's also "I'm an Indian, not a 'Native | American'." Euphemisms don't accomplish anything. | vkou wrote: | > That varies a lot regionally. Plenty of people use | "gipped" for "ripped off", | | In my experience, they tend to stop, when you gently | remind them that a very similar term that means the exact | same thing, but refers to jews, has fallen out of favour | in recent decades. | renewiltord wrote: | What's the word that refers to Jewish people? | bbatsell wrote: | https://www.jta.org/2019/09/25/culture/what-does-jew- | down-me... | renewiltord wrote: | Oh. Oh wow. Thanks, man. | collyw wrote: | I don't think anyone is particularly bothered by their | race, rather their behaviour. (In the UK there are both | Irish gypsies and Romani gypsies, both have a bad | reputation). | ido wrote: | The racist part is generalizing the behaviour of some | people to everyone of that ethnicity. I'm sure a few | decades ago you'd easily find plenty of Europeans telling | you they are not bothered by the Jews' ethnicity per-se | but by their behaviour. | collyw wrote: | Godwins law. | ido wrote: | It was the first comparison that came to mind. You can | replace my example with comparison to generalizations | against black people in the US if that doesn't break the | Internet Law. | renewiltord wrote: | Godwin's Law isn't "if you mention Hitler you are wrong". | umvi wrote: | > pay the rent for them and give a special card that can be | used for anything except alcohol and cigarette | | In theory that works but addictions are super powerful, so what | ends up happening is that the person will still obtain | cigarettes and alcohol, even if it requires begging to get the | cash for it. Or they will trade their subsidized food for cash | or cigarettes/booze. | tartoran wrote: | For hard addicts, I don't know, they'd do anything to get | their fix and that can manifest in unproductive ways for the | society: theft, muggings, etc. I'd actually let incurable | cases of addiction get their fix for free in exchange for | some things such as bathing regularly, stay in shelters at | night and not wonder the streets, etc. I'd be a win-win | situations in my opinion. Living in NYC allows me to see a | very large number of homeless people. And what makes it | really worse is that there are sometimes almost 1-to-1 to | train cars and there is no way of escaping the stench on | trains. If you weren't forced to be stuck in a subway car | with a homeless with half of the car packed and the other | completely empty except for one sleeping stinking homeless | person. The other day my wife took my kid on the train and a | homeless guy started smoking on the train. When the train got | off she got off that car and got on the next one. It was | worse, the smell of rotten gangrene is not something I'd wish | upon anyone. | agumonkey wrote: | > they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and | rent | | Some are just deep into a depression pit. I agree that some | people are just weak, but most people hitting homelesness went | through big losses that damages your motivation to lead a | normal life. Grudge, sadness, loneliness, grief, abuse .. don't | conclude too fast. | Cloudef wrote: | The thing is that the "home first" movement in Finland states | that home isn't a trophy that you get once you fix your life. | Home and food is essential to get your life on track, and | home is given even for alcoholic people. But if they don't | pay their rent, and even give up on social welfare to pay the | rent for you, what can you do? | agumonkey wrote: | I think it's unrelated, people like that are not ready to | function 'normally', they need a shelter, asylum, hospital. | It's an emotional problem more than material. | Cloudef wrote: | If they don't cause harm to other people, you can't | really force them or tell them they are living their life | wrong. | agumonkey wrote: | You're very contrarian it seems and that's annoying. | js8 wrote: | You can show them though, get them to talk to other | people who have been in a similar situation, have been | helped out of it, and have now a better life. | Cloudef wrote: | Note that, these kind of people are very rare. I can | assure everyone gets all the help they can get. But these | kind of extreme cases, usually have no drive to live | their life other way, and you can do little to change | them. There is very little homeless in Finland in | reality, and it's one of the first things that always | rubs me wrong overseas when I see homeless on the street. | Seeing homeless on the street in Finland is not _normal_. | chongli wrote: | There are other approaches to treating people with drug | and alcohol addictions than trying to get them to quit. | One is harm reduction. This has most famously been used | to help people with IV drug addictions, in the form of | safe injection sites. | | It can also be used for alcoholism: you provide a bar- | like setting where people can go to get free drinks | (rationed and served on a schedule by a trained server) | and also socialize. | | If this is coupled with free housing, food, medical care, | and therapy, it stands a good chance of helping people | where involuntary hospitalization might have failed. | | I've volunteered serving free meals to homeless people in | a restaurant style setting. People get their choice of | appetizer, entree, salad, and dessert. Volunteers wait | tables and then sit down to eat with people at the end of | their shift. I've had some amazing conversations with | people who have all kinds of experiences to share. It's | amazing how much of a difference it makes when you treat | people like a person rather than a problem to solve. | austincheney wrote: | The city of Austin, TX could be a case study of what not to do. I | was remotely employed to company with offices in Austin in | 2014-2015 and it was awesome to visit and walk around down town. | I always had a blast. | | I visited Austin in 2019 and there were homeless people | EVERYWHERE. Every green space and nearly every street corner | seemed to be littered with homeless people. The difference | crystal clear. Something in the handling of the homeless problem | had failed in that city. | SaintGhurka wrote: | To add some missing details on this, in 2018/19 the city | council passed some ordinances that removed the criminality of | some homeless activities. Specifically, they made it explicitly | legal to camp in most public spaces (excluding parks) and they | permit panhandling, sitting and sleeping on public sidewalks. | | So there's a lot of "campsites" downtown. A lot of tents, or | just people in sleeping bags on the sidewalk. A lot of people | peeing against the buildings. | | It's hard to score the upsides and downsides without starting | an argument, but it feels like much of Austin has soured on the | "decriminalization of homelessness". | jupiter90000 wrote: | Any ideas why it seems like tech hotspots start passing laws | like this? I'm thinking of San Francisco, Seattle, and | Austin. I feel like there is some correlation, but I do not | know what it is. My perspective is that maybe it seems more | compassionate to not outlaw street camping, but I do not see | how it is helpful to anyone including the ones on the street | to allow this to continue. | ativzzz wrote: | Probably has something to do with much of the tech scene | leaning left politically, so more lax homeless | restrictions. | | In the end, it doesn't solve the root cause of homelessness | (probably makes the situation worse locally since it | attracts homeless from elsewhere), but it's not like anyone | in the US has some serious plans to tackle the issue at | scale. | barbacoa wrote: | Worth noting, before the city council legalized homeless | camping there were literally zero tents. | vkou wrote: | Did you have no homeless people, or were they still | sleeping rough, just without a tarp to keep the wind and | the rain off their heads? | SaintGhurka wrote: | It's more homeless people [1]. I mean, it's really a lot | of people. It's pretty unmistakable. | | The tent cities do make them more noticeable, though. | Also, the police used to be able to roust people | illegally camping, so if you had somewhere else to go, | you'd have to go, or else go to the shelter. | | Now people have the option to refuse the alternatives. So | maybe visible homelessness has climbed more than actual | homelessness. | | [1] https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2020/05/austin- | sees-10... | barbacoa wrote: | There was always a homeless population but they would | stay in shelters or camp deep in the woods and keep to | themselves. Now homeless are leaving the shelters and | choosing to live in the streets. | | since 2019 (when the camping ordinance was passed): | | * homelessness has increased 11% | | * Un-sheltered homelessness is up 45% | | * Numbers in shelters and transitional housing is down | 20% | | https://www.statesman.com/news/20200519/austin- | sees-11-incre... | vkou wrote: | Why do you think homeless people are choosing to sleep | rough, rather than stay in shelters? | CubsFan1060 wrote: | I live in a completely different area of the country, but | around here the shelters are all very strict about drugs | and alcohol. You can't bring them in, and you also can't | be drunk when you arrive. That's one reason why folks | here choose to not be in a shelter if they have another | option. | vkou wrote: | Consider that millions of well-adjusted, middle and | upper-class people, with jobs, children, access to | doctors, therapists, friends, support networks, and, | really everything they could ever wish for... Struggle | with, and die from drug and alcohol addiction. | | If those people can't stop using drugs, it's hard to | expect someone lacking all of those resources to be able | to do so. | | If you make shelter conditional on sobriety, you're | unlikely to get more sobriety. | barbacoa wrote: | I imagine numerous cities have been spending countless | millions on studies and consultants to figure out an | answer to that one. | | Personally, it's the lifestyle they choose. They make | little micro houses out of rubbish and tarps equipped | with couches and mattresses. They make comical signs such | as "need money for booze" for laughs and get free food | from charities or shelters. There are some that have no | where else to go but a non-trivial number are there | because it's cool these days to live a nomad hipster | life. | | Downtown Austin is/was somewhat of a party area with | numerous bars and clubs and it gets so popular on | weekends that the police shut down some of the streets | for pedestrians only. It was a festive place to hang out | -- which is part of the attraction. | | In most cities areas that get taken over by the homeless | become blighted places regular people never venture to | (i.e. skid row in LA). The reason that people are so | freaked out in Austin is that downtown is full of | residential and commercially office buildings which | results in people having to walk through these areas | trying to get to/from work. | burntoutfire wrote: | > Something in the handling of the homeless problem had failed | in that city. | | Or, the homeless are recent migrants from other areas? At least | where i live, the homeless all congregate in biggest wealthiest | cities, because it's easier to beg, their presence blends in | more and also local communities are more atomized so they don't | fight off the homeless as hard as in smaller places. I've heard | a story of one homeless guy who have recently been sleeping on | a bus stop near my home - he's basically travelling from one | big city center to another, and stays as long as the police | doesn't chase him off the area. | gamblor956 wrote: | Austin is becoming what LA used to be (and in the winter, | still is) for the Midwest: the place for cities to send their | homeless to so they don't have to spend money on them. | giantg2 wrote: | Not only do they tend to select larger cities, but also | warmer cities. You mostly hear about the homeless population | in places like San Francisco, Oahu, Austin, etc. If you're | homeless, you might as well go to a place where you're less | likely to freeze to death. Although there are some homeless | in places likes Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, etc. | | Not to mention some cities will give them money if they take | a bus to another city. Just shuffle the people around so it's | no longer that current city's problem. | kleiba wrote: | _[...] but also warmer cities [...] like San Francisco | [...]_ | | Err...? | a3n wrote: | > Not only do they tend to select larger cities, but also | warmer cities. | | As a trucker, my view is mostly from the interstate. | | The most homeless I see in my travels all over the country | is I-5 in California, Oregon and Washington, and CA 99. | | It's pretty cold in Washington and Oregon right now. Even | California at night. | | Tents, tarps, sleeping bags, on both sides of the freeway | fence, or inside interchange cloverleafs. | | Not judging their condition or their person, I don't know | them. It looks pretty rough. | paxys wrote: | In other parts of the country you will freeze to death | sleeping outside at night, so west coast cold is | definitely relative. | giantg2 wrote: | That's certainly cold. I was just saying from a relative | position. For example, it's relatively warmer than the | midwest. | zehaeva wrote: | You do hear about it more in warmer cities, but the city | with the largest homeless population is actually NYC by | quite a large margin. | | https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/slideshows/cities-with- | th... | thehappypm wrote: | Per capita? NYC is 2x larger than any other city. | giantg2 wrote: | LA/Los Angeles county (what the prior link uses) is a | little larger than NYC, 10 million vs 8 million | respectively. | | I would also be interested in per capita per city. Even | more so for aggregates of cold vs warm cities overall. | giantg2 wrote: | I wonder if they have an aggregate comparison of warm vs | cold cities. I'd still consider NYC on the warmer side | (with the gulf stream on the coast) when comparing it to | the midwest or even Albany. For example, even going from | Pittsburgh to Connecticut can be an increase of 20 | degrees due to the gulf stream even though you are going | slightly north. | u678u wrote: | Just another city run by Democrats. Seriously I'm a blue voter | myself but its beyond parody how Democrats screw up their own | cities like this. | thehappypm wrote: | yawn | originalvichy wrote: | Im not american but looking at your poll numbers isn't every | major city democrat-leaning? | dang wrote: | Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar. Nothing | good can come of this. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | jseliger wrote: | Most American cities will do absolutely anything to reduce | homelessness except build more housing: | https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en... | | California cities are probably the worst offenders: | https://seliger.com/2017/08/30/l-digs-hole-slowly- | economics-..., but even Austin is underbuilding relative to | demand. | gamblor956 wrote: | One of the very liberal reporters at the LA Times did a | series of articles on the homeless crisis in LA a year or two | ago. | | He actually had difficulty finding a homeless person who was | from Southern California. Nearly all of the homeless were | from other states or other countries. | | It's not California's failure so much as it is that the rest | of the nation is using California to warehouse their homeless | so they can feel smug about not caring for their own | citizens. | michael1999 wrote: | Remember that only 40% of Californians are from California. | Most people in California aren't from there. | jeffbee wrote: | Austin story is simple: housing is overpriced, they are only | slightly behind the same process as the SF Bay Area. In the | time frame you mentioned Austin housing prices increased by | 50%, which is ridiculous. There's not another mysterious cause | of homelessness. | austincheney wrote: | I think that must be an oversimplification. Fort Worth just | to the north is growing at the same speed as Austin. My house | has doubled in value in the last 11 years. Yet, Fort Worth is | extremely anti-homeless in its city ordinances and we don't | have a visible homeless problem. As Fort Worth is a giant | city in a warm climate I am sure there is a homeless problem, | but we residents don't have to see it. | jeffbee wrote: | Even so, housing costs in Ft. Worth are still much cheaper | than in Austin, and the difference is widening. In the last | 30 years housing in Austin has gone from 30% cheaper than | Ft. Worth to 30% more expensive. It's easy to see why: Ft. | Worth enjoys liberal-marketarian zoning policies and Austin | suffers increasingly from left-NIMBY potectionism, | meanwhile population pressure is actually higher in Austin | due to job growth. That is why the Austin situation seems | to me to be quite similar to the SF Bay Area. | | Not discounting that Ft. Worth local policies may do a | better job of hiding homelessness, only I don't think it is | the root cause. | res0nat0r wrote: | It's because the city council a while back decriminalized | homeless camping, so it's become much more obvious and | prevalent in high traffic areas. I can see this for | myself if I walk a handful of blocks from where I live | and see the new tent city which wasn't there a year ago. | They're likely going to reverse this rule since it's not | really fixing problem. | | https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/01/25/austin- | texas... | | https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/01/21/homelessn | ess... | 650REDHAIR wrote: | What do the jails look like? | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | > Something in the handling of the homeless problem had failed | in that city. | | Austin city council removed a ban on camping in public in 2019. | The pitch was that it "decriminalized homelessness". | | Austin is still a liberal city, but revocation of the ban is | now widely reviled given the tents and trash that have grown | everywhere, without doing anything really to help homeless | people. There is an initiative on the ballot for an election in | May to reinstate the camping ban, and I'd take a 100-to-1 bet | it will pass. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | >Something in the handling of the homeless problem had failed | in that city | | I'd wager that they made the problem worse by importing rich | people with a high tolerance for bad public policy and | homelessness. | finiteseries wrote: | 2019 levels would be an improvement given what's gone on in | 2020, the pandemic has made everything much, much worse. | | A progression of one of the camps from Jan 2020 to Aug 2020 | https://youtu.be/xbsXgU6PO6U | | Downtown Austin a few weeks ago: https://youtu.be/aDvqut1zLso | agumonkey wrote: | Anybody know about initiatives to build cabins instead of letting | people sleep in the cold ? | Joeri wrote: | Housing first is an approach conceived in the U.S. but for | political reasons not as widely adopted as it should be. 99pi did | a fascinating podcast series about the homelessness problem in | oakland and how housing first fits into the picture. My | preconceived notions of why people are homeless were definitely | upended. | | https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ | WarOnPrivacy wrote: | I'm in the US. I was homeless as a teenager (not by choice). I | live adjacent to a major homeless community (not by design). My | ex left our family to join the homeless community (she struggles | with mh issues). I have some observations. | | We could sharply reduce homeless numbers here if we had in- | patient mental health facilities (for non-wealthy), comprehensive | housing aid and politically powerful job placement programs. | | I just looked up our jail budget and inmate population; we pay | ~$25k/inmate/year (excluding court & police costs). That money | gets us a pretty solid guarantee that arrested mentally ill | people will reoffend, given how many entrenched systems there are | to make sure that convicted people are locked out of most jobs | and housing. | e40 wrote: | In-patient services for mental health were decimated in the | 80's. Reagan cut the funding and cities were flooded with | homeless + mentally ill people. I was at UC Berkeley at the | time this happened. There were so many seriously mentally ill | folks on the street. It was sad. | jandrese wrote: | It worked out great for Republicans. The spike in crime rates | made their "tough on crime" message resonate. When you're | homeless and mentally ill it's basically guaranteed that | you're going to have fights with the police. | HNfriend234 wrote: | Tough on crime isn't purely a republican stance though. | Democrats worked hand-in-hand with republicans in the late | 1980s to push through many tough on crime policies. This | was due to crime skyrocketing in the 1980s due to cheap and | abundant crack cocaine flooding America's streets. | klodolph wrote: | Just an observation. The mental health system doesn't have much | capacity to begin with. Even for middle-class folk with | insurance it can be very hard to get treatment. There is a | shortage of mental health professionals which is projected to | get worse. Psychiatrists are mostly doing medication management | because that's where they're most effective. Following the path | of getting treatment--everything including diagnosis, therapy, | medication, and accommodation requests--requires a shocking | amount of initiative on the part of the patient. | | I would love to see the country dig itself out of the hole. I | think the mental health crisis itself is huge. Both in-patient | and out-patient. We need more psychiatrists and psychiatrist | PAs. | thebean11 wrote: | > Psychiatrists are mostly doing medication management | because that's where they're most effective. | | I think it's money: insurance will shell a lot more $/hour if | they do 15 minute medication appointments instead of hour | therapy + medication appointments. | klondike_ wrote: | Inpatient mental hospitals used to be in every state. They | housed not only the mentally ill but also the chronically | homeless and other outcasts. As the advent of antipsychotics | and antidepressants reduced their population, these hospitals | were an obvious target for budget cuts throughout the 80s and | 90s. They money for the community health centers that were | supposed to replace them never materialized, and thousands of | patients were left without access to their medication. Some | estimate that over 50% of the homeless population is mentally | ill. | | Ironically prison systems now provide these services (and | sometimes paying more for them!!), but in a much worse | environment for the patients. | | https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/showsasylums/ | arrosenberg wrote: | I'll never forget this fact because there is a King of the | Hill episode (10:13) where a mentally-ill, homeless man named | Spongy exclaims "Ronald Reagan kicked me out of my mental | hospital!" and Hank bashfully tries to justify it as part of | winning the cold war. | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | It is probably much harder being homeless in Finland than in San | Francisco just from the weather. San Francisco is relatively | mild, even in winter. Finland in winter gets pretty cold, and | people are in severe danger of death or loss of body parts from | frostbite. | adaisadais wrote: | Homelessness does not beget homelessness. It is most important to | note that. Our society is so focused at solving the primary | symptoms without ever diving deeper into the root cause of things | like this (looking at you Sf). | | To experience homelessness one must have first experienced a | reason to now be homeless. In modern western society we have many | failsafes that prevent people from becoming totally dislodged | from a place of shelter. But more and more people are losing such | shelter and are ending up on our streets. Why? | | The answer is often rooted in the human condition. Solving that | is almost impossible... but it's worth trying. | offtop5 wrote: | I'll say this as someone who's been evicted twice, the number | one reason the vast majority of people end up homeless is | because they don't have money. | | This can happen for a small array of reasons, let's say you're | in a bad marriage and your spouse leaves. You simply can't make | the rent anymore, you're now homeless. | | 19 years old, and you're getting into really bad fights with | your parents, you're now homeless. | | Develop a medical issue in your mid-30s which prevents you from | working, you're now homeless. | | In my fantasy world we wouldn't even have evictions, instead a | social worker would advise you that you're legally entitled to | effectively a dorm of some sort. | | >In modern western society we have many failsafes that prevent | people from becoming totally dislodged from a place of shelter. | | You're kidding right, when you're released from prison they | give you 20 bucks. Awful hard to find housing with $20 you | know, especially when you have a criminal record. A ton of | people did do things which warranted a sentence, but we make no | effort to reintegrate these people. So you did something bad | when you were 20, you being 35 years old out on the streets | without any hope isn't healing anything. If anything at all | you're much more likely to resort to another crime of | desperation. | jariel wrote: | I think there are generally accepted to be 2 categories - | those that fall out temporarily and the long term homeless. | | Your situation is more the former. It's really common and | that's what basic safety nets are for. | | The longer term folks - serious drug addiction, mental | illness, excessive abuse etc. etc. - those are the harder | cases. | porb121 wrote: | > In modern western society we have many failsafes that prevent | people from becoming totally dislodged from a place of shelter. | | the US has much weaker social safety nets, and the ones it does | have are often conditional on applications or proof of work. | | to say solving homelessness is almost impossible when US | homelessness is orders of magnitude worse than countries like | Finland's is nonsensical | Synaesthesia wrote: | It should be pretty elementary to solve homelessness, as | Finland has shown. There's also no reason we can't have full | employment. The Soviet Union had it. | grumple wrote: | The USSR ran enterprises at a loss and kept workers idle | though. And then their economy and government collapsed. | | Not exactly a recipe for success. | itake wrote: | I've lived in LA, SF, and Boulder. Most of the homeless in | these cities are not interested in being apart of society. | They are perfectly happy with their lifestyle of mental | health and drug addictions. | | Yes, there is a minority of homeless struggling to rejoin | society, but the (pardon verbiage) worst people have no | interest or empathy for society. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | You're already coming across as very judgmental of these | people. Have you actually talked to them? Do you know why | they prefer their lifestyle? I mean you just implied that | mental health is a lifestyle or addiction (??? maybe check | your phrasing), and that drug addiction is a lifestyle | choice instead of e.g. a coping mechanism because society | failed them. | itake wrote: | > Have you actually talked to them? | | yes. Everyone has their own story. Checkout these | interviews on Youtube: | | LA - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ZFzEW7_Q4 Seattle | - https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=877 | | The homeless I talked with in Boulder romanticize camping | forever along the creeks and being free from society, | while trying to leach off of public services. | | > Do you know why they prefer their lifestyle? | | Drug addiction, mental health, and in some cases lack of | family support. | | > that drug addiction is a lifestyle choice | | Drug addiction is a choice. Based on my very limited | personal experiences, you gotta commit to making a change | (see above videos). Many addicts just aren't ready to | leave their vices for a better life. No amount of rehab | will help someone if they aren't ready to commit to a | change. | | > society failed them. | | Sorry if this sounds conservative, but trying to blame | other people for your problems doesn't really get you any | where. Society throws problems at everyone, some more | than others. Laying around complaining or rejecting it | doesn't improve anyone's situation. | | People need to apply critical thinking skills and tackle | their own issues (hence the need for an addict needing to | commit to the idea of solving the problem of their | addiction). | | Ex-homeless/addicts getting together to correct "society | failed" them problems via AA meetings is an excellent | example of people that apply critical thinking skills and | try to help. | watwut wrote: | > Sorry if this sounds conservative, but trying to blame | other people for your problems doesn't really get you any | where. | | The person you are responding to is not homeless and is | not talking about own problems at all. Much less blaming | own homeless problem on somebody else. | | Instead, he is someone who is trying to talk about | strategies people like him, non homeless people, can push | for so that other peoples chance to become homeless is | smaller. | | Basically, compete opposite of your accusation. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | Woop, there's the "socialism is a slippery slope to | communism" argument. | collyw wrote: | Isn't socialism supposed to be the stepping stone to | communism (but usually ends up in totalitarianism instead)? | watwut wrote: | No. Communism was supposed to be abrupt revolution and | transformation. The democratic socialism was seen as | enemy, because it made people calmer, happier and less | likely to commit to revolution. | dragonwriter wrote: | > Isn't socialism supposed to be the stepping stone to | communism | | The "socialism" stage of Marxist Communism, which in | Leninist practice (which differs sharply from the | dictates of Marxism from which it was adapted, but shares | this and some other elements of theory) _is_ | totalitarianism (not a stepping stone to it) is supposed | to be a stepping stone to the perfected end state in that | theoretical framework. But neither the Marxist nor | especially the Leninist form of that is the same thing as | the "socialism" pursued by non-Marxist socialists, and in | non-Marxist socialism there 's no consistent role of | socialism as a stepping stone to something else, whether | utopian Communism or some other end-state. | iSnow wrote: | >Homelessness does not beget homelessness. It is most important | to note that | | But is this really a fact? I agree with your later reasoning | that homelessness is a symptom of deeper problems, but I'd | argue that our societies should have one more failsafe in | place: housing for the homeless. | | I've never been sleeping rough, but I'd think it would be | pretty traumatic. This would kick some into seeking help, but | would make others fail even more. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | > In modern western society we have many failsafes | | The US called, they want you to pay your hospital bills. | | Or when it comes to SF, rent. | user-the-name wrote: | Actually the answer is much more often rooted in capitalism, | which is a lot easier to solve. | crazypython wrote: | As soon as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903259 was | posted, two posts in /new, it helped bring this one, got to the | front page: | | 26. Show HN: Rust-starter, a boilerplate to build Rust CLI | applications (github.com/rust-starter) 18 points by csomar 19 | minutes ago | flag | hide | past | 6 comments | | 27. Finland has slashed homelessness; the rest of Europe is | failing (economist.com) 30 points by ashergill 19 minutes ago | | flag | hide | past | 11 comments | | 28. The Reasons I'm Joining BIGtoken as CEO (medium.com/crypto- | oracle) 3 points by simonebrunozzi 19 minutes ago | flag | hide | | past | 1 comment | | 29. Upvote to encourage more people to visit New Links on Hacker | News (ycombinator.com) 164 points by crazypython 21 minutes ago | | hide | past | 19 comments | reedf1 wrote: | It all comes back to a concept as freshman as it gets - Maslow's | hierarchy of needs. How are you supposed to get out of any | societal freefall without shelter? | Cthulhu_ wrote: | Exactly so. I mean there's plenty of people that are not | homeless but because of poverty can't get to the next tier of | said hierarchy. | devoutsalsa wrote: | One of the hardest things for me when I was in financial free | fall was how little my friends could understand or help. They | didn't understand that I literally had no where to go, and that | me asking for a place to crash wasn't me simply wanting to | visit at the last minute. My friends also weren't rich, so even | if I could have stayed with them, it's not like they had a | spare bedroom or guest cottage in which I could stay for a | while. Oddly enough, the people who did let me stay with them | were folks that were themselves nearly broke and/or recently | homeless, all of whom I had only recently met. They understood | that if I was asking them for a place to crash, that I really | needed a place to stay. The kindness of strangers really saved | my butt in 2009. | asdff wrote: | Finland has 5.5M people and about 5 thousand homeless. Los | Angeles county has 10.5M people and estimates are nearing 100,000 | homeless. The situation is an order of magnitude different in Los | Angeles, even by West Coast standards, and what works in Findland | is unlikely to scale anywhere else, much less a place like the | U.S. which has the bare minimum of a social safety net compared | to the rest of the developed world. | anewaccount2021 wrote: | Homeless in LA also won't freeze to death if they sleep outside | in January. | pretendscholar wrote: | Why wouldn't scale help los angeles tackle the same problem? | porb121 wrote: | what works in Finland (giving people housing) definitely works | in Los Angeles - LA was the subject of a recent research paper | demonstrating the massive success of such a program | | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H9oD3zeBPua7r5wFoHVrMZmmiqK... | u678u wrote: | In areas of the USA with the population density of Finland there | isn't much (any?) homelessness either. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | And your point is...? | | I mean I guess culling the population to make the price of | housing drop is one solution, but it's a bit strong don't you | think? | u678u wrote: | The point is its easy to fix homelessness when land is cheap | and building materials are cheap. It doesn't really help our | problems in big American cities. | hedberg10 wrote: | In areas of the USA with the average temperatures of Finland | there isn't much (any?) homelessness either. | naavis wrote: | It doesn't make much sense to look at the average population | density of Finland. Homeless people don't really roam the empty | countryside, they are in the cities, probably much like in the | US too. | nabla9 wrote: | Related news: European Court of Human Rights just made important | ruling that decriminalizes begging. Making it criminal to be poor | is against human rights. | | ----- | | ECHR 021 (2021) | | 19.01.2021 | | (Judgment Lacatus v. Switzerland) | | The penalty imposed on the applicant for begging in public | breached the Convention | | In today's Chamber judgment 1 in the case of Lacatusv. | Switzerland (application no. 14065/15) the European Court of | Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: | | a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family | life)of the European Convention on Human Rights. | | The case concerned an order for the applicant to pay a fine of | 500 Swiss francs (CHF) (approximately 464 euros (EUR)) for | begging in public in Geneva, and her detention in a remand prison | for five days for failure to pay the fine. | | The Court observed that the applicant, who was illiterate and | came from an extremely poor family, had no work and was not in | receipt of social benefits. Begging constituted a means of | survival for her. Being in a clearly vulnerable situation, the | applicant had had the right, inherent in human dignity, to be | able to convey her plight and attempt to meet her basic needs by | begging. | | The Court considered that the penalty imposed on the applicant | had not been proportionate either to the aim of combating | organised crime or to the aim of protecting the rights of | passers-by, residents and shopkeepers. | | The Court did not subscribe to the Federal Court's argument that | less restrictive measures would not have achieved a comparable | result.In the Court's view, the penalty imposed had infringed the | applicant's human dignity and impaired the very essence of the | rights protected by Article 8 of the Convention, and the State | had thus overstepped its margin of appreciation in the present | case. | eznzt wrote: | > Related news: European Court of Human Rights just made | important ruling that decriminalizes begging. Making it | criminal to be poor is against human rights. | | Equating begging with being poor is wrong. | | Bothering others is not a human right. | Youden wrote: | I agree with the sentiment but based on the text of the ruling, | I can't agree with the ruling itself [0]. Missing from your | summary is: | | - "The applicant, Violeta-Sibianca Lacatus, is a Romanian | national who was born in 1992 and lives in Bistrita-Nasaud | (Romania)." | | - "In 2011 Ms Lacatus, who was unable to find work, began | asking for charity in Geneva." | | Why was somebody who "lives in" Romania begging in Geneva? | Would she not have received social benefits in Romania? This | looks like a perverse kind of tourism. Refugees and asylum | seekers I can understand but Romania isn't a warzone or | dictatorship, it's an EU member state. | | And I think "decriminalizes begging" is a bit hyperbolic. The | court did set some precedent but they were also clear that a | critical factor in the ruling was that this woman was in a | situation where she genuinely needed to beg in order to | survive. | | [0]: | https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&... | GekkePrutser wrote: | > Why was somebody who "lives in" Romania begging in Geneva? | Would she not have received social benefits in Romania? This | looks like a perverse kind of tourism. Refugees and asylum | seekers I can understand but Romania isn't a warzone or | dictatorship, it's an EU member state. | | Social benefits in Romania are miserable compared to other EU | countries. And cost of living in the cities is going up due | to business booming. I've seen families with kids sleep on | the streets there. It's really sad. | | A well educated retired teacher who was begging in Bucharest | whom I spoke to for an hour explained it to me. She was very | smart and well aware of world politics (and excellent | English) but she just couldn't make ends meet. Definitely not | an alcoholic or someone 'who doesn't care enough to get a | job'. It's the old people that are really in trouble as they | lack the skills to work in this modern world and their | pensions apparently are worse than in the communist days | (taking rent increases / cost of living inflation into | account). Many jobs were moved from public sector to private | and their pensions evaporated as a result. | | Having said that, the young people do really well in Romania, | they get good education and all the chances they need. | Business is booming especially callcenters because Romanians | generally excel at languages. | | I wish the EU would start imposing minimum standards to | welfare because the old generation there is really getting | left behind. I saw people in the flat beside our fancy office | who had no windows but just plastic bags hanging in their | flat, in -15 C. While outside the Audi's and BMWs from the | upper class queue up and the young people are the new middle | class, the old are just watching it all pass them by. The | gains of the new system aren't divided fairly. | | I'm surprised this 28-year-old needed to beg though, their | age group have the best chances. | usr1106 wrote: | That sounds like a reasonable decision. | | After all advertisement is nothing but begging to increase the | profit of the advertiser. If I really need to buy something, | I'm sure I can do so without advertisement. | | Advertisement, be it some marketing phone call, someone | offering me whatever subscription on the corridor of the mall, | and ads making my phone browsing experience super slow are a | much bigger nuisance to me than beggars. | | The amount of various form of soliticing might vary where you | live. But forbidding everything that's a nuisance to someone | won't be the solution. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | A bit of a jump. I mean I get that you dislike advertising | and I agree with you, but equating it to begging is reaching | and diluting the discussion with your issue is adding | confusion. | usr1106 wrote: | Where is the difference? Businesses charge more than what | their costs are, the rest is their profit. Beggars request | more than what they deliver, everything is their profit. | Still beggars seem to succeed worse. I have no problem with | that, but there is no reason to "declare" their business | model illegal. | | If you buy an Apple product you bought a status symbol. If | you give to a beggar you bought a warm feeling, that it did | not harm you and helped them. | | Disclaimer: I have never bought an Apple product. I hardly | ever give money to beggars. But I do give them food if I | happen to carry some. Which could be my supremacy that I | don't want the to spend my money on alcohol. | nickff wrote: | That depends on how you define 'costs'. You seem to be | narrowing a business' costs to COGS (cost of goods sold), | and disregarding marketing and financing costs which may | be critical to reaching or maintaining an economy of | scale. | dd_roger wrote: | > Related news: European Court of Human Rights just made | important ruling that decriminalizes begging. Making it | criminal to be poor is against human rights. | | Lol, you're taking a very ungenuine shortcut. Legal residents | who also happen to be poor do not resort to begging because | they receive help through the appropriate welfare programs. The | the overwhelming large majority of people affected by this law | are foreigners who take advantage of Schengen to come to a rich | country only for begging. These people have no legitimity of | being here and earn no sympathy from me. | nabla9 wrote: | I sure that we both can agree that | | - illegitimacy or being foreigners does not remove human | rights and human dignity. | | - feelings or sympathy or lack of them should not be taken | account when administering justice or government policy. | | ps. Roma from Romania are not illegitimate. They are free to | move across Europe. Free travel is also for the poor. Swiss | voters reject bid to curb EU freedom of movement | https://www.dw.com/en/swiss-voters-reject-bid-to-curb-eu- | fre... | | >Swiss voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to | limit the free movement of people and immigration from the | European Union. | dd_roger wrote: | Romania isn't in Schengen so yes, they are illegitimate. | But you're the only one talking about Roma here. | | What should be taken into account for policy making is the | interest of the country's citizens (and non-national legal | residents to a lesser extent), not "begging tourists". | oblio wrote: | This means that anti-panhandling/anti-begging laws will become | void soon in several countries. | | This could lead to some interesting results if it's true that | some branches of organized crime use organized begging. | nabla9 wrote: | Yes. This is very exiting. | | The ruling creates real incentives to attack real problems, | instead of brushing them out of sight. | cxcorp wrote: | Unfortunately I would imagine that it's still easier to | spread a narrative blaming the EU than to attack the real | problems. | username90 wrote: | The beggar was not Switzerland's problem, it was a | tourist. | ashergill wrote: | paywall link: https://outline.com/JV4xXe | | edit: no longer working, apologies. | agilob wrote: | The link doesn't work, it just shows "None." | jchw wrote: | https://archive.is/viQQG | neonate wrote: | https://archive.is/viQQG | ur-whale wrote: | https://archive.is/viQQG | sevenf0ur wrote: | Why is France taking in more migrants than it can support? It | seems cruel to have your migrants homeless and living on the | streets. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-25 23:01 UTC)