In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. The reason: The country applies the “Housing First” concept. Those affected by homelessness receive a small apartment and counselling – without any preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected thus make their way back into a stable life. And: All this is cheaper than accepting homelessness.
Updated on November, 10th 2020
This article was updated on February, 5th 2024. An additional article with a new interview on recent events can be found here.
Read this article in German here.
Finland is the only country in Europe where homelessness is in decline
In 2008 you could see tent villages and huts standing between trees in the parks of Helsinki. Homeless people had built makeshift homes in the middle of Finland’s capital city. They were exposed to harsh weather conditions.
Since the 1980s, Finnish governments had been trying to reduce homelessness. Short-term shelters were built. However, long-term homeless people were still left out. There were too few emergency shelters and many affected people did not manage to get out of homelessness: They couldn’t find jobs – without a housing address. And without any job, they couldn’t find a flat. It was a vicious circle. Furthermore, they had problems applying for social benefits. All in all, homeless people found themselves trapped.
But in 2008 the Finnish government introduced a new policy for the homeless: It started implementing the “Housing First” concept. Since then the number of people affected has fallen sharply.
Finland has set itself a target: Nobody should have to live on the streets – every citizen should have a residence.
And the country is successful: It is the only EU-country where the number of homeless people is declining.
Housing first: How everyone is given residence in Finland
It is NGOs such as the “Y-Foundation” that provide housing for people in need. They take care of the construction themselves, buy flats on the private housing market and renovate existing flats. The apartments have one to two rooms. In addition to that, former emergency shelters have been converted into apartments in order to offer long-term housing.
“It was clear to every
21 Comments
foobarian
Wonder how they force the homeless who don't want the shelter. Maybe it's just cold enough that it doesn't happen much.
wil421
Finland has a population similar to the US metro I live in. The rates were about the same a few years ago, 4,000 people, it would be interesting to apply similar methods here. The city and famous people bought real estate in a former open air drug market and housed people there with great results over a decade or so.
LuciOfStars
Sounds a lot better than building benches with handles that stick up your rear end.
stavros
It seems like this is free housing, but near the end it says that some people don't manage to pay the rent? Does anyone know if this is free or not?
martinald
The UK also has the same policy. There are very very few people that are completely unhoused, instead they beg on the streets and then go back to a flat/shelter. The ones that are completely unhoused are either their by "choice" or are so chaotic they have ran out of options. In UK cities you will see a lot of people on the streets during the day but not at night.
However, the number of people begging on the streets is still rising sharply, so I don't think it is the silver bullet everyone thinks it is.
NB: some people are there by "choice" because some shelters are so chaotic it is better to be out on the streets. Some have lived outside for so long that they do not like living inside. I'm not saying that the situation couldn't be improved, but the core issue is addiction IMO to get rid of 'visible' "homelessness".
There is also a huge problem that so many people are living in "temporary" accommodation for years waiting for social housing.
The key point I'd say is the problem with homelessness is addiction treatment (and the lack of it). You can give these people houses but without treatment they will still be begging on the street. One alternative would be to prescribe heroin which I think could work, but crack/meth is different – very hard to keep people on any sort of maintenance dose of those drugs and most of the "chaotic people" are addicted to an opiate and a stimulant.
I've started doing volunteer work in this space for the past few years and it really has opened my eyes to the real problems with it. Housing is a prerequisite to the solution but it is not a solution itself, unfortunately. I didn't realise this before volunteering.
z33k
Yesterday (March 5, 2025) there was a headline in the top Finnish newspaper:
Shopping malls in Helsinki become a hive of homelessness
<https://www.hs.fi/helsinki/art-2000011068519.html>
When it gets cold, the homeless congregate in the warm interiors of malls. The guards on duty won’t let them sleep there, but they prefer it over being out in the cold.
skizm
I mean, New York, including NYC, has a right to shelter law that anyone is allowed to get a free bed if they want. There is still rampant homelessness or vagrancies or whatever you want to call it.
timonoko
Here is last-ever homeless abode from 2005 Helsinki. Totally habitable, warm and dry, whatever the weather. Beats any government shelter, especially those where sobriety is enforced. https://photos.app.goo.gl/MqwRWdgkN0oynyTw1
ck2
Meanwhile in USA we're approaching nearly 1000 BILLIONAIRES in the country
(Billionaires have a MILLION dollars per MONTH of income, PER MONTH FOR LIFE)
yet people around here sleeping in the woods and cemeteries
exponentially more sleeping in their cars thinking it will only be for a few weeks (turns into years real quick)
pogue
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torlok
I genuinely think that the anti-Europe sentiment in the current US government and libertarian spaces is because European countries manage to do this and more, and remain competitive in the global economy, while the US tells its citizens it "can't afford" public healthcare or student loan relief.
darren0
"With 4 out of 5 people keeping their flats, “Housing First” is effective in the long run. In 20 percent of the cases, people move out because they prefer to stay with friends or relatives – or because they don’t manage to pay the rent. But even in this case they are not dropped. They can apply again for an apartment and are supported again if they wish."
There are no preconditions, but there are conditions to maintain. In this case, rent being required apparently. This is the recipe for success that I've seen. And if they don't maintain the conditions they get kicked out with the opportunity to come back and try again.
jslezak
Effective US policy is that people must serve whatever corporation wants their labor or else they will be left to die without healthcare, shelter or food
Other countries do not have this policy
moffkalast
US also ends homelessness, and provides two shots to the back of the head to all in need
hammock
Can anyone in Finland confirm? I'm curious about
A) number of homeless today vs 10 years ago
B) waiting time for one of these apartments
c) acceptance and integration of these people in the local community
hkt
Cue a flood of people euphemistically saying this is because it is a "small, homogenous" country
mrbluecoat
Utah did the same thing two decades ago: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni…
KerryJones
The title should mention this is from 2020
andrewla
Buried in the last time we discussed this phenomenom [1][2] is the reality of the Finnish policy towards homelessness.
Like in the US, "homelessness" as in "poor or unlucky people who find themselves without a residence" is practically a nonexistent problem. The real problem is the mentally ill or drug addicted people frankly being a public nuisance.
Finland has tried to sell their strategy as one of providing housing, but that masks the actual reality. Finland is engaging in large-scale involuntary confinement of mentally ill individuals, and that is responsible for the entirety of their solution.
The current Finnish mental health regime was enabled by a law passed in 1990. Since that point, given the 5.6M population times the 214/100,000 rate [3], we get a total of ~12,000 people committed. The graph in the linked article [4] shows a reduction in homelessness from about 17,000 to about 4,000, a reduction of approximately 13,000 people.
So all but a tiny fraction of the homeless population was not miraculously housed; they were put involuntarily into mental hospitals. While I hope that Finnish mental health facilities are humane and the inmates are well cared for, historically this has almost never been the case — other agencies claim credit for reducing homelessness and eventually funding dries up and the conditions worsen in the facilities because the problem doesn't seem urgent.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42656711
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683898
[3] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychiatric-bulletin…
[4] https://oecdecoscope.blog/2021/12/13/finlands-zero-homeless-…
relaxing
No response yet from the guy who shows up in these “guaranteed housing” threads to claim everyday people will stop paying rent and voluntarily live in the projects?
Must still be asleep on the West coast… Rise and grind, my dude!
lolinder
Needs (2020). I find a recent report [0] that shows that the trend has continued, though interestingly only Helsinki has actually shown significant improvements:
> Of the large cities, Helsinki is the only one where homelessness has
systematically decreased in the past five years. In other large cities, the
pattern has been more irregular (Figures 4 and 5). The reduction in
homelessness in Helsinki covers more than half of the reduction in
homelessness in the whole country.
Also worth noting from that report is that it has data going back to 1986 in an appendix (page 25) and the downward trend in homelessness dates back at least that far. The homeless rate had already cut in more than half by 2008 when this program started.
[0] https://www.varke.fi/en/media/101