Is Finland’s Housing First really a miracle cure for Canada?

Last week I had a dream that was almost a nightmare.

I’m speaking on stage at a housing conference attended by 30,000 people. My talk will be a regular stump speech. Canada needs a true national housing program. But the theme of the conference is the Housing First model, and people only want to talk about Finland’s success in implementing it. A white face stares at me. No one wants to hear me.

Let’s go back to real life.

I’ve never been to Finland, but the country is known for being at the top of social indicators that measure livability, such as education, housing, literacy, and health.

According to all reports, Finland has done a good job of eliminating homelessness through Housing First, but it also provides housing for others, creating mixed-income housing for workers, middle- and low-income families, and artists. was founded. Additionally, Finland has a social network that combines prevention and solutions, from helping people facing a mortgage crisis to preventing evictions, jobs, and surprising housing (apparently there are plenty of saunas). There was a safety net.

However, the current reality is that Finland, with its more conservative government, is facing changes that threaten this happy scenario. Both trade unions and student organizations are protesting cuts to social welfare and violations of employment rights and job security.

My dream/nightmare prompted me to ask this question.

Why do Canadians have amnesia about the historic success of the national housing program and instead hope for miracles in the distance?

background.

Canada created a fully funded national housing program after World War II. We delivered an average of 20,000 new units per year. Fifty years later, and sadly without much public outcry, the federal government cut the National Housing Program in 1993. The federal government then cut transfer benefits to states and territories, further exacerbating the social welfare dire situation.

States followed suit, further cutting funding to social programs such as social assistance and local housing downloads.

The rest is history. A devastating social welfare disaster that affected all of Canada.

If you read my column, you’ll see that I’ve tried to explain my problems with the American-born Housing First model as a solution to Canada’s homelessness and housing disaster.

I even reluctantly added an entire chapter to my memoir. A knapsack filled with dreams I will explain in detail.with title Under the rug: Housing First’s inhumane “solution” to homelessness and its horrific legacyI believe that the mayors of Canada’s largest cities imported the American Housing First model into Canada in the early 2000s and ultimately cemented it as federal and provincial policy at the expense of national housing programs. Record how you made it possible.

Housing First was primarily marketed through the concept of a 10-year plan to end homelessness. be careful). The 10-year plan acted as a smokescreen for the government to hide behind and lose focus on building housing for all.

The lack of emphasis on the right to housing meant that the financialization of housing flourished.

I have argued that Housing First has become a policy tool to introduce and justify economic and social policies that ensure the further withdrawal of life-saving aid to vulnerable people. Under the umbrella of Housing First, a series of harmful policies were enacted. It includes funding restrictions on community programs that prevent them from providing survival supplies to people outdoors, street-to-home programs that exclude people from tourist and business districts, new laws that criminalize homelessness; This is a new law that makes it a crime. After all, the most visible form of state violence is the evacuation of militia camps.

As a street nurse, I have always felt that Housing First pathologises homelessness and creates dynamics that establish who deserves housing and who doesn’t. If you have an addiction or severe mental illness, it makes sense, especially if you have any of these conditions and are visible on the streets rather than in shelters. It’s worth less if you’re a senior citizen, a family with children, or a single mother, a middle-aged woman with breast cancer, or one of the 80,000 families on Toronto’s public housing waiting list.

Berwick Jarman, a longtime housing advocate, sums up this dissonance this way:

“Housing First means that unhoused people are different from other people. Therefore, they require a different situation. It’s called pathological homelessness, or even a kind of identity politics.” The reality is that everyone needs the basics to survive and may need support. They may include income, work, education, child care, affordable housing, etc. Housing affordability, in particular, not only impacts housing availability and general well-being, but without it can lead to long-term illness, injury, and future loss.”

I’m going back to Finland.

An American advocacy group called Invisible People studied Finland’s Housing First and produced a documentary titled Housing First. How Finland solved homelessness: Here’s how (spoiler: housing doesn’t come first).

As in Canada, mass homelessness is an epidemic across the United States, exacerbated by tearing apart social safety nets and a global pandemic. Knowing that Housing First was born in the United States and failed miserably, Invisible People went on a detective mission to the small country of Finland to learn how it worked there and created a documentary. was produced.

It turns out there were 20,000 homeless people in Finland in the 1990s. Finland’s Housing First expert Juha Kahira explains that the country’s harsh climate (sound familiar?) is responsible for people dying on the streets. Finland he launched a rapid phase called Housing First in 2008. This included converting shelters into housing and building more affordable housing. By 2022, the number of homeless people in this country has decreased to 3,686 people.

Jari Karpinen, a Salvation Army manager in Finland, politely told an American interviewer with a laugh. Make your changes. Housing First originated in America. ”

As the documentary title suggests, Finland’s success is about more than Housing First. The documentary shows that services for the homeless in Finland include the important elements of skilled street support that respects and listens to the voices of those affected, harm reduction, shared spaces for meals, It shows that supportive housing solutions, such as gathering and community building, are included. But the cornerstone of the Finnish model is affordable and important mixed-income housing.

This is not unique to Finland. There are literally hundreds of similar examples in Canada. We have traditionally excelled in building and supporting innovative housing developments. Berwick Jarman and I have hosted numerous walking tours for politicians, trade union leaders and the media, showcasing our successful homes that have been home to tens of thousands of people. One of the most successful neighborhoods is the St. Lawrence neighborhood in downtown Toronto. People come from all over the world to see it.

Finland’s former housing minister, who led the Housing First program, sums up Helsinki’s success in building affordable housing. He points out that this is the result of “huge amounts” of money being spent on housing construction by both the federal and local governments. He stressed that homeless people are first and foremost human beings and therefore deserve housing, but noted that Housing First has made the city more hospitable to tourists and foreign direct investment. are doing. Unfortunately, it seems to be this latter point that is driving his enthusiasm for housing in Canada’s largest cities.

Back to my dreams/nightmares. My own analysis suggests that it was probably triggered by interest in Finland’s Housing First, which has recently reached new heights.

• Last week, Patrice Bergeron of the Canadian Press reported that Quebec politicians think Finland’s Housing First model will solve homelessness.
• The former city planner enthusiastically shared the above article on social media. So did the CEOs of several national housing organizations.
• Last month, a high school student asked me to participate in an extensive research project examining Housing First. I’m a high school student!
• Well-meaning friends started flooding my inbox with Finnish success stories.

Conclusion.

Canada has been practicing Housing First for 20 years. As a solution to the housing crisis, and in the absence of a true national housing program, it is a colossal failure. Politicians, policy makers, academics, researchers, and to some extent even the media are collectively burying their heads in the sand.

Let us turn our attention, advocacy and action to promoting a truly national housing program: social housing, including supportive housing, public housing, cooperative housing, and funds for rehabilitation and green building. Please make it for everyone. And indeed, the government will need to spend “substantial amounts”.