| Homlessness solutions are very expensive and, in countries such as the UK, very inefficiently managed. We have a system here where you can ask for help and if you are classed as vulnerable you often will get it. The best 'help' is offered to people with kids. This will often be a low budget B&B type accomodation which is usually just one room. It will be a step up from living on the street but only just. Next best comes to people who've just been released from prison, drug addicts and alcoholics. They may be offered a bed in a hostel full of people with similar problems. Not surprisingly, the sensible ones choose to stay on the street. Those who are truly vulnerable will take the bed and may end up worse off in the long term. At the bottom of the pile are people who just made a few bad decisions or had a temporary bout of depression. These people are not judged as vulnerable and can literally just go and screw themselves, the system wasn't set up to help these kinds of folks. Of course, there are success stories where people have worked their way through the system and eventually been offered a state-sponsored place of their own but such stories are not the norm. I have been homeless and I got lucky, a complete stranger offfered me help and I grabbed it with both hands. I got sweet nothing from any agency - of which their are multiple here. They are part of the problem since they employ lots of people who would never get a job elswhere and have huge cash resources to misappropriate. I don't know if the Nordic example given here would fare better but it certainly could not do worse. |