The Finnish Way to Solve Homelessness
While in San Francisco the number of people sleeping on the rough is skyrocketing, in the scandinavian country is shrinking. How did they do it? I went and have a look
HELSINKI. On the white iron single bed is a pink comforter with three fuchsia pillows and a large stuffed bear, again in the color most loathed by feminists, with a red heart sewn on its paw. Below the TV ceramic cherubs; above, a multiple photo frame with the words Love in the center. If it weren't for Bob Marley's head printed on a cloth poster, no one would doubt that this was the bedroom of a blossoming 10-year-old. Instead, Tuja lives there, fifty-two years prematurely withered away thanks to a potent marinade of drugs and alcohol. With a son who occasionally visits her, two daughters she prefers not to talk about, and the grief of a couple of dear friends who died recently. Barefoot, wearing a vexatious anklet, she chats at the coffee table with a guest. After years sleeping on the streets and a move to a more mainstream facility, she has finally won the equivalent of the lottery by being admitted here, on quiet Alppikatu Street, along with about 80 other guests. In one of the assisted living communities that, in defiance of the Lapalisse Prize nomination, they decided that to solve the problem of homelessness there was nothing better than to put one over their heads. Thus accomplishing a silent revolution (the beneficiaries are category without a press office) that borders on the miraculous: while throughout Europe homelessness is increasing, in Finland it has dropped by more than half. How was this possible?
The short answer is: by wanting it badly. All together: municipality, government, church. And then doing it, according to an experimental approach already seen at work for basic income, tested for two years, verified and not repeated because the welfare of the participants had increased but not the entries into the labor market. This is not a country for religious wars: if they have a problem they look for a solution, if it doesn't work they look for another. Juha Kaakinen, who has just retired as chairman of the Y-Foundation that financed the massive housing effort, is as close to the daddy of Finnish Housing First as it gets. Which is inspired by the eponymous teachings theorized in 1990s New York by psychologist Sam Tsemberis: "that to housing is a human right," "separation of shelter and treatment," "harm reduction." Principles put into practice here, but with a more Scandinavian twist: "In truth we came to it on our own, and compared to them we focus more on permanent accommodations. To really feel at home a human being needs a name on a doorbell," says Kaakinen summarizing a slide presentation by Marko Lahtela, the young manager of the Salvation Army-run facility. Highlights: 81 apartments (studios of about 20 square meters) for 85 residents. Each with a lease on 500 euros per month (equivalent to about 250 of ours, considering the immeasurable purchasing power) which, in eight out of ten cases, is paid in full by state subsidies ("From their pockets, when they are in a position to do so, comes at most a hundred euros that they can earn by taking part in small daily activities," such as cleaning the common areas, for a maximum of eight euros per day). Breakfast and lunch included, for dinner everyone provides for themselves, cooking in the room or in the shared premises.
The most memorable sentence uttered by Lahtela is, "Substance abuse by our residents must be respected" because access to the home is "unconditional," not a reward for those who behave well. However, among the twenty staff are social workers and we are "happy to support the attempt for a return to sober living, if that is what they desire." But without insisting. They can continue to drink and do drugs, as long as they don't disrupt the lives of others (among the most frequent coexistence problems: loud music, outside visitors who occasionally mess up, which explains the Plexiglas shields in front of televisions and locks on computers in shared spaces). It remains, however, that this ultra-permissive approach, practically the anti-San Patrignano, has at least solved one problem if in 1987 there were 18,000 homeless people in Finland and in 2021 there were 3950 (meaning a 78 percent drop, which is reduced to 40 if you calculate from 2008 when the program officially started). Considering that in San Francisco, where the problem has gotten so out of control that a state of emergency has been declared, each tent in a municipal tent city costs about $60,000 a year for maintenance and cleaning-and still remains the most precarious of accommodations-it is worth paying close attention to Finnish heterodoxy. As the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has done by quantifying at more than $15,000 the annual savings in social, judicial and emergency health services that a homeless person, by the very act of staying on the street, ends up consuming. A figure that essentially matches that saved per person in an experiment in Finland's Tampere. Sensational: being good pays off!
Kaakinen, a man of rare kindness, sums up for me a long career in city social services over dinner at the Alexanderplats (a pun on Berlin's most famous square) overlooking the centrally located Esplanadi: "Our foundation was established in 1985 to buy, on the private market, houses for the homeless. Then we also began to build social housing. In 2013, when I started running it, we had 6300 apartments, today 18,300. We are the fourth largest real estate owner in the country, with more than 1.3 billion worth of houses." And who gave them this money? "A good initial portion came from gambling taxes. Another big chunk from 40-year, very low-interest mortgages, which the residents are supposed to pay back with their fees." Of course, it is possible because in this country paying taxes is a civic boast ("I found a letter from my father from the front who, having finished the story of a bomb that had fallen near him, recommended to my mother that she send him the declaration forms to fill out.") But the message that needs to get through, to export the practice, is that it would benefit everyone. Still Kaakinen: "During an interview with an Irish newspaper I found out that with what they were spending there on temporary housing they could have bought 900 apartments!" Housing first is proselytizing in Scotland, Denmark and in Houston, the fourth most populous city in the U.S. In the last decade they have thus managed to get 25,000 homeless people off the streets, more than halving them from a decade earlier. But only here is it a national policy. Consistent, realistic, not feeding false illusions: "Cases of our residents returning to active life, to the labor market, are rare. When it happens it is an added bonus. But our goal is to reduce homelessness. There is value in each person, and in my experience, the positive surprises have far outweighed the negative ones. Many people are still drinking, but they are drinking less: isn't that already a splendid achievement?" I am reminded, by difference, of Michael Shellenberger, author of San Fransicko, a successful pamphlet on "how progressives ruin cities." One who, taking me on a mini-tour of horror among the homeless that doubled between 2005 and 2020 in the California city, attributed all the blame to the fact that these were "people who take their right to assistance for granted. Instead they have to deserve it, take back their lives." A John Wayne ethos that, as on guns and health care, did not yield enviable results.
In Helsinki, on the other hand, without too much rhetoric, the current government has announced a goal of wiping out the problem by 2027 (as well as increasing the share of social housing in total new construction from 25 to 35 percent). In the past two years, however, the numbers of long-term homelessness have stopped falling. I ask Kaakinen if, as in San Francisco, it has something to do with Covid reducing spaces in shelters and leaving more people on the streets: "Maybe there is that too but I'm afraid we thought we had solved the problem and relaxed. Instead, we need to put even more effort into putting in smaller facilities that sometimes work better." The one run by the Deaconess Foundation is medium-sized. A beautiful brick building with the first four floors reserved for men and the next three for women. Over which Minna Kiviaho, a smiling lady in a floral dress by Marimekko, the local design glory, oversees. It is three o'clock and time for coffee served by two social workers in the shared kitchen. Again, the first thing they make clear is that "you have to respect the lifestyle of the residents." However, for those who want, there are detoxification activities and, although not permanent, a doctor is on call at all times. The first guest to arrive is Marre, who, from the height of her fifteen years here (she is fifty-two and the first time ever that among near peers the reporter is not the one who wears them worse), is a veteran. An assistant pushes her in a wheelchair because her leg is bandaged: "I fell while visiting my son. But not because we were fighting," she adds with excusatio non petita not exactly soothing. An èra ago she was a nurse. Then the divorce. The alcohol. The sidewalk. Not necessarily in that order. She is happy to finally have a place of her own. Where she can smoke, watch TV, mind her own business and receive guests. Two floors below is also her second husband (the first died on the street), but they hang out just enough. There is Ewelina, who does not speak English, however. And 31-year-old Laura, overweight and barefoot, who among the advantages of staying here cites the sense of security and the possibility of being helped on everything. I try to ask what their summer will be like, what they would like it to be like. But it's a silly question to ask survivors. Once a year they go out to go to the movies, a date that was skipped with Covid and will now start again. It will be a party. Never more so than the truffle dinner organized in late June for Milan's homeless by the National Association of Italian Truffle Hunters. With the difference that that one turns you around one evening, housing first a whole life.
(Originally published on il Venerdì)