Should we make decisions based on the what-ifs of the helsinkiläinen or reality?
What works for Finland might not for California without us acknowledging that every homeless person who wants housing in San Francisco isn’t entitled to it. They can be entitled to housing. But not where they want it.
One challenge there is that many of the factors driving the location wants aren't entirely unreasonable: That "want" to live in proximity to the VA hospital that will provide them the medical services they need, they "want" to live in proximity to family members they can get (or sadly, often harass) some support out of. They "want" to live in a place where a poor ability to manage themselves and/or their substance addictions won't result in a quick death from exposure (or arrest).
You should acknowledge the differences, because scale matters.
Finland is a bitterly cold country (in winter) with a hard to understand language and 5 million people. The local homelessness problem has some relatively low upper limit.
The US is a country of over 300 million and SF has very good weather all year round. Its migration potential is almost two orders of magnitude bigger.. If you simply give a home to everyone who turns up in SF and says that they need it, you won't have enough homes. You could deny coverage to anyone who moves to SF after a certain date; that would mitigate the "amount of homes needed" problem, but it remains to be seen if the homeless community does not grow back to its original size.
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Should we make decisions based on the what-ifs of the helsinkiläinen or reality?
What works for Finland might not for California without us acknowledging that every homeless person who wants housing in San Francisco isn’t entitled to it. They can be entitled to housing. But not where they want it.
One challenge there is that many of the factors driving the location wants aren't entirely unreasonable: That "want" to live in proximity to the VA hospital that will provide them the medical services they need, they "want" to live in proximity to family members they can get (or sadly, often harass) some support out of. They "want" to live in a place where a poor ability to manage themselves and/or their substance addictions won't result in a quick death from exposure (or arrest).
You should acknowledge the differences, because scale matters.
Finland is a bitterly cold country (in winter) with a hard to understand language and 5 million people. The local homelessness problem has some relatively low upper limit.
The US is a country of over 300 million and SF has very good weather all year round. Its migration potential is almost two orders of magnitude bigger.. If you simply give a home to everyone who turns up in SF and says that they need it, you won't have enough homes. You could deny coverage to anyone who moves to SF after a certain date; that would mitigate the "amount of homes needed" problem, but it remains to be seen if the homeless community does not grow back to its original size.