[gridlockd]

The headline is factually wrong. The truth is that Finland has reduced the population of homeless by 35% over ten years[1].

While I applaud easing the bureaucratic hurdles in giving people access to homes, in many cases not being offered a home is not the reason why people are homeless. It's simply not "as easy as that".

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle...

[splitrocket]

Logically, your argument is baffling on its face: homelessness is literally the condition of not having a home. Giving someone a home literally solves the problem.

All that said, "Housing First" is the most effective, lowest cost, evidence based program we have to substantially lower homelessness. It works, and it's vastly cheaper than both the status quo ( https://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/resources/lessons/... ) and just about everything else we've tried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First#Evidence_and_out...

[noirbot]

It can solve it in a literal way that doesn't actually meaningfully change the societal problems of Homelessness. If, for example, we thought it vital that everyone own a car and drive everywhere, and that people walking to work was a problem to be solved, you could give me a car and I'd no longer be "carless". That doesn't mean I will use it, or stop walking to work, or otherwise change the reasons I didn't have a car before.

That's not to say that literally giving people houses isn't a good idea, and won't solve some chunk of the issues of homelessness. But, for instance, if I was sleeping in my broken down car on the street near my work, and you gave me a free house on the other side of town, I'm not "homeless" now, but it now introduces new problems of how I get to work across town.

Giving someone something they lack in life is a lot like giving someone a organ transplant. Hypothetically, we could "cure" a lot of liver diseases by giving everyone a "new" liver, but we have to get that liver from somewhere, and the recipient has to be able to integrate it into their life without it being rejected, and they have to not keep doing the things that led to them having the problem in the first place or else it all repeats in a few years.

[SpicyLemonZest]

The article mentions that 1900 people still live on the streets and 1 in 5 homeless people will not be able to keep their Housing First flat. It would appear that Housing First has not been able to solve their problem.

[karaterobot]

I assume OP was talking about the headline of the linked article, rather than the title of the HN article. The headline of the linked article makes a much stronger claim:

>Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need

Which is needlessly hyperbolic and tabloidy, and even belied by the very first sentence in the article.

[gridlockd]

> Logically, your argument is baffling on its face: homelessness is literally the condition of not having a home. Giving someone a home literally solves the problem.

That's over-simplistic reasoning. Yes, we have a word called "homeless" that we use to refer to people living on the streets. That does not imply giving them a home solves the problem, or that the lack of such offers is what keeps them in that condition. If the simple reasoning was correct, why couldn't Finland solve the problem by offering free housing with no strings attached?

That's not to say that such policies aren't helpful to those who really just lack access to housing. It doesn't end there though, that's my point.