Been seeing "Finland has eradicated homelesness" posts a lot from typically "socialism is when the government does stuff"-leftists or some AmeriKKKan Bernie lib and it has become such an angering thing for me. It is all neoliberal country branding.
That is all it is. Our shitty pseudo-leftist nato loving "modern left" party has gone around flexing about their progressive housing program. The party has no power, zero. It means nothing.
I work with homeless people, in Finland. Where almost all housing has been privatized. Where the state support has been cut to a level no poor person can meet. If ones rent goes over this state mandated limit, people are forced to move. This leads to movement into rural areas where there is no work or services, factually creating segregation.
If you have a mark on your credit, nobody rents to you. I spend my time trying to house these people and every time I see this meme/info floated on the internet I become more annoyed.
The next time anyone goes "oh look at that socialist finland eradicating homelessness" you can say that this neoliberal austerity hell has nothing whatsoever to do with socialism, never really did and they definitely have not eradicated anything.
My understanding of economics did tell me that it's impossible for capitalism to genuinely deal with homelessness systemically the way planned economies did/do so. Thanks for explaining what the situation is.
It really is. I have today again spent most of my worktime trying to fight the system of privatized housing to "allow" a client to rent from them despite having a credit marking and belonging to a group of people who faces a lot of discrimination. I can't do much because there is no lever I can push to force the landlords as they are operating just for profit. It's a farce, from start to finish.