As well as giving rough sleepers a place to live and the support to keep it, a greater focus on social housing and the welfare state has allowed Finns to make greater strides in tackling homelessness than the UK.
Homelessness in Finland has declined from around 16,000 people in 1986 when ARA started conducting national homelessness surveys to around 3,800 people in the present day.
But the reasons behind rising homelessness in the Scandinavian country will be familiar to Brits.
Rising rents and government cuts are behind the rise, according to Y-Säätiö analysis.
Budgets for housing advice have been halved while demand has increased by almost 80% in places like the capital Helsinki.
Homelessness declined in Espoo and Vantaa but rose in other cities, including Helsinki, Turku and Tampere where 117 more people were experiencing homelessness.
Y-Säätiö’s Ojankoski said: “Compared to previous years, we are seeing many more tenants being forced to resign because of the level of rents and, correspondingly, more applications for lower-cost apartments at the request of Kela, the social insurance institution of Finland.
The aim of the reforms was to steer people receiving subsidies towards more affordable housing, but the result is that a number of people are being pushed out and driven into homelessness. The demand for small and affordable housing has increased as a result of the conditions and decisions, and there is not enough suitable housing for everyone.”
The Finnish government is expected to launch its plan to end long-term homelessness by 2027 this spring, backed with local development projects and more than €8m in funding.
Ojankoski said that Helsinki has “the best homelessness work in the world” and reducing homelessness nationally has been “one of the brightest successes of the Finnish welfare state”.
She called for a reverse of the cuts to housing advice budgets and a renewed commitment to the principles and models that made Finland the envy of the world for tackling homelessness.
“The now confirmed data on the rise in homelessness underlines the need for joint programming and local projects. The rise in homelessness also shows that a focus on ending long-term homelessness is not enough if prevention fails,” Ojankoski added.
We need to react now, before the problems become more deeply entrenched. This situation is not the result of a single bottleneck, we need a multi-faceted approach to homelessness prevention. At its best, homelessness work is about avoiding the experience of homelessness altogether.”
The figures will make interesting reading for the Labour government, which has committed £1bn in spending to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping in the last year and are expected to publish a long-awaited homelessness strategy this summer.
Scores of government ministers have made the trip to Finland in recent years to see the Finns’ successes for themselves.
Labour has vowed to shift towards preventing homelessness in its bid to reduce record-high numbers, undoubtedly inspired by Finland.
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