When I think about places to live, I think first of the homeless. Imagine standing on a street corner at eight o’clock in the evening with all of your earthly belongings. It is drizzling and cold. You have no where to shelter, call your own, sleep, or feel safe. Maybe you will find a doorway or an underpass and hope that the temperature doesn’t drop and the drizzle doesn’t turn to snow. And, the most you can hope for the next evening is exactly the same predicament. Do you sense the despair the homeless must feel?
Can homelessness be eradicated? Countries with the greatest success in providing social housing and reducing homelessness consider housing a basic human right. Finland embodies this right in Article 19.4 of its constitution. Also, it has a nation-wide Housing First program that embodies the simple idea that everyone is entitled to somewhere to live without pre-conditions.
In Finland, poor credit, financial destitution, complex psychosocial issues, addiction, and / or alcoholism do not interfere with the right to a place to live. Housing first, treatment follows – the theory being that it is easier to treat someone if they are in a stable home.
There is nothing I fear more than being homeless again. I grew up in a household of fear, and have survived several forms of abuse. I have been addicted to opiates. I have been incarcerated. I have had to fight for my literal survival on a lot of different occasions. I have hitchhiked across America, and lost everyone I loved at one point. My life has had more than a fair share of frightening moments, but nothing scares me nearly as much as homelessness .
Homelessness is Only One Piece of my Puzzle (Sean LeBlanc, 2015, p. 96).
So how did Finland accomplish these results? Stay tuned but in the meantime, think first of the homeless.
I did warn you at the start of this series on Cities and Towns, there would be repetition as I try to get some order in these articles. So, to create a little interest I will insert a short vignette on different types of places to live.
Site area: Approximately 12,000 square feet
Developed: Seven social-housing dwellings clustered around a communal garden with deep soil planting and mature trees. The one and two-storey residences all have street level entry and each unit overlooks the central garden. The units are lightweight and were built using simple, affordable construction systems.
Australian architect, Anna O’Gorman, designed these units to overcome the lack of attachment of the residents in drab towers commonly associated with social housing.
I know! I am going to sound like a grumpy old man. Maybe that is because I am. I have been scratching my head in wonderment at the Taylor Swift phenomena. Is she an Incredible song writer, composer, and performer? I really don’t know! A discussion for another time? But probably not. At my age […]
Don’t build it! At least, Not In My Back Yard ! I acted as an advisor in the sale of a beautifully natural, 14-acre urban waterfront estate. Existing zoning allowed for the development of 30 to 35 single-family homes, which after road dedication would leave very little green space. I did not think that was […]
We were visiting Glasgow (literally that Dear Green Place in Gaelic) to see where my father was born, grew up, and went to University. Fortunately for me, my cousin John from Australia had just visited and had met with historians, Bruce Downie and Norry Wilson. So, we too arranged to meet them in the Govanhill […]
Vienna on top again. This week both Monocle Magazine and The Economist unveiled their quality of life / most liveable city indexes. There are differences in the way each publication sets its index. So it is even more impressive that once again, Vienna tops both lists. I am a bit lazy today so rather than […]
Many Viennese went from hot bedding to superblocks overnight. Could they even imagine an apartment complex 1000 metres long built along two streets with even more massive landscaped courtyards? Could they conceive of 1400 apartment units built to house 5000 people on 56,000 square metres or 38 acres of land. Or a vertical build-out that […]
Vienna had been a poor city even before the First World War. “Normal” housing arrangements meant six to eight people sharing one room and a kitchen. Then, in early 1919, just after the Armistice, the cost of living tripled in two months. Bed lodgers could no longer afford their 8-hours a day in a shared […]