No More Homelessness In Finland

For years, the number of homeless people has been rising in Europe and in America but not in Finland. The country’s Housing First Program aims to eliminate the problem by 2027. But how?

Vehi Hinkka, a homeless man says that he really enjoys showering. But how exactly? Warm or cold? Long or short? Hinkka, a 54-year-old with neatly combed gray hair, a prominent nose, and rough skin, thinks for a bit. He rubs his chin with his outstretched right index finger and thumb, apparently really considering it. His gaze wanders across the bare white walls. “So, umm,” he says, “I don’t totally understand the question. I just really like showering, all kinds.”

Hinkka, it seems, is no longer used to people taking an interest in his life, neither is he accustomed to being able to decide how and for how long he showers.

Hinkka spent much of the last five years living in emergency shelters and on the streets. On good days, acquaintances would let him sleep in their apartments. He has been a steady drinker for the last 23 years, says Hinkka – that’s about the same time since he last had a job. And yet here he is, in a rather bare one-room apartment with an easy chair, a bed, and a kitchenette. For the last 10 months and nine days, Vehi Hinkka has had his own apartment. He still remembers the exact date he moved in. It was February 10th, 2023. Now, he can invite friends to come visit him and play host. He can cook, and he can shower whenever he wants. Last summer, he says, he showered 10 times a day, really, no exaggeration. Simply because he felt like it and because he could.

Vehi Hinkka is no longer homeless. But he still hasn’t returned to health, either. Addiction has left its mark on his body and it continues to define his life. Yet he was still granted an apartment and trusted to pay his rent every month, which he does. He smiles shyly as he talks about it.

In recent years, thousands of people in Finland have experienced similar upturns in their fates. The number of homeless people has been skyrocketing in Europe in recent years, and Finland is the only European Union member to have almost completely eliminated the problem. Only around 3,600 people in Finland are currently without a roof over their heads, and the country is aiming to make long-term homelessness a thing of the past by 2027. In the capital of Helsinki, it is to vanish already by 2025.

But how have the Finns managed to do it? And how does a society change when almost nobody has to live on the street any longer?

Harri Ollinen has a lot to say about it. A social worker, Ollinen is head of the residential area on the northeastern outskirts of Helsinki where Vehi Hinkka lives. The estate is made up of 70 small apartments, previously home to university students, mow formerly homeless live there. There is a community hall and a sauna, but there are also clear rules. No violence, and no drugs or alcohol in community spaces.

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Four colleagues are sitting together with Ollinen in the group room this morning and several former homeless people come in and out. Housing First is the name of the concept Finland is experimenting with by assigning an apartment to people who, in many other cities, wouldn’t even get a place to sleep in an emergency shelter. Complete abstinence is often the requirement for many aid programs in other countries – which is why, the Finns believe, they fail so frequently. Here, though, such rules only apply to public spaces. A team of 20 people provides around-the-clock care to the many residents who suffer from addiction. The team isn’t just made up of social workers, but also includes nurses, work therapists, psychologists, and doctors.

“By giving people a home, we are creating structures,” says Ollinen. “Once that is in place, we can talk about everything else.”

Surrounding him are a number of men, some of whom clearly have a hard time sitting still. The youngest is 27, though he looks a decade and a half older than that and can only walk with a crutch. He is still on the waiting list, but he comes here four times a week and enjoys cooking. He asks to be called Santeri – and speaks of his fate in clipped sentences.

He was just 11 years old the first time he drank alcohol and started taking hard drugs at 12. By the time he was 13, he was selling them. He says he had his first apartment to himself when he was 16 – but lost the last one at 19. For a while, he says, he lived in a tent in the forest and for many years, he took anything he could get his hands on, including cocaine, heroin and meth.

“I have no memory of what happened in certain years of my life,” he says. Today, he says, he mostly limits his drug consumption to drinking and smoking weed. His greatest wish is to have an apartment of his own. “And you will most certainly get one,” says Harri Ollinen.

“Those living on the streets can’t afford to have feelings.”

The residents of the housing estate have recently even been assigned an empathy consultant. She is the first of her kind in the entire world, says Enni-Kukka Tuomala. “Those living on the streets can’t afford to have feelings,” she says. “When you’re homeless,” says one of the men, “you don’t even tell your friends where you are sleeping.”

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For decades, Finland has been investing in the construction, maintenance and purchase of welfare housing. In recent years, more than 8,000 apartments have been created for the homeless, with the end of homelessness being a shared goal of all governments on both the left and the right. In the capital city alone, the number of people living without a roof over their heads fell by 40 percent from 2019 to 2022.

The first demands for a greater focus on the homeless emerged in the 1980s. At the time, the country was suffering from a serious economic crisis and an estimated 20,000 Finns were without a home. Many of them slept in garbage cans in the winter so they wouldn’t freeze.

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In 2007, it was a conservative minister for construction who paved the way for the Housing First initiative – the idea that an apartment would be made available to all homeless people. “The idea didn’t come from social workers, but from leading members of a conservative government and experts. That gave the whole thing a different level of credibility,” says Juha Kahila. A social worker by education, she works for Y-Säätiö, the foundation started by the five largest municipalities in the country, which own a majority of the apartments in the program.

Now, Kahila meets people from all over the world to explain the intricacies of Finland’s Housing First concept.

Kahila wears an Apple watch and an expensive hoodie and his desk is decorated with a Steve Jobs bobblehead doll. He often sounds more like a manager than a social worker, instead of talking only about fundamental rights and hardship, he now speaks of clean city centers and less strain on the emergency rooms. “I intentionally avoid speaking only about the moral aspects,” he says. “The focus is on ensuring that the concept is convincing and receives sufficient support, not on my conscience. Everybody finds it more pleasing to live in a city where nobody lives on the street.”

The program is also beneficial from an economic point of view, says Kahila. Since the beginning of the program, Housing First has found an apartment for 60 percent of Finland’s homeless population. Since 2012, the state has calculated that it has saved almost 32 million euros annually as a result, with most of that savings coming from the healthcare sector. “Hardly any other country can present such positive statistics,” says Kahila.

Foreign visitors, says Kahila, frequently point out that Finland is a rather small country and is home to comparatively few immigrants. But Kahila views such arguments as an excuse, saying that others simply lack the political will necessary. “Without a systemic shift in social policy, nothing will happen. We aren’t just implementing a project here, we are pursuing a completely different approach.”

“In the Beginning, We Felt Like Santa”

There is plenty of potential for improving the situation in other countries as well, says Kahila, mentioning that numerous cities have plenty of unused office space and empty hotels. He also mentions Denmark, which has adopted an approach similar to Finland’s and recently became the second EU member state to see a drop in homelessness.

Whereas in many other European countries, more and more people are living on the streets, in Finland, they are actively searching for them. Elisabet Erkkilä leads a team at Helsinki City Hall tasked with finding those who are still without a roof over their heads and providing them with support. Like most of those interviewed for this story, she, too, is a former social worker.

Erkkilä’s team includes five social workers and two nurses. Her job is to spend her days looking for people who still haven’t been caught by the safety net and help them get a spot on the waiting list for an apartment – in addition to assisting them when it comes to taking advantage of all the existing aid options, including emergency hostels, assisted living facilities and support from social workers.

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Erkkilä used to be out on the streets as a social worker herself. “At the beginning of the program, we felt like Santa Claus,” she says. “It’s not often in our job that a problem simply disappears.”

Her team has shrunk over the years, which is a product of its success. “At the same time, it must be said that there is still hidden homelessness. In Helsinki, there are very few people living on the streets, but many hide at friends’ places or frequently change shelters. Some conceal for years the fact that they don’t have a place to live.”

For many years, setbacks were confronted with even more ambition, and despite the high initial costs, the state and municipalities arranged for thousands of additional apartments.

Sadly, recently, though, politicians have begun turning their backs on the former consensus. The new right-wing government is pursuing a strict austerity program and subsidies for affordable housing and accommodation consultation have been slashed. The declared target of former Prime Minister Sanna Marin of completely eliminating homelessness by 2027 has been discarded. The new plans only call for an end to “long-term homelessness.”

“The goal won’t be met,” says Juha Kahila, of the foundation behind the Housing First program. “The abolition of homelessness by 2027 is now history.” Oh the harm a right-wing government can cause.

Social worker Erkkilä wonders how long her clients will have to wait in the future before she can help them. She fears that her days of playing Santa Claus will soon be over – so close to the finish line. 

This piece is part of the Global Societies series. The project runs for three years and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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