They had a very long history in Finland, and everyone could see they were not getting people out of homelessness. “We had to get rid of the night shelters and short-term hostels we still had back then. Juha Kaakinen, CEO of the Y-Foundation, which provides low-cost flats to homeless people across Finland. “It was clear to everyone the old system wasn’t working we needed radical change,” says Juha Kaakinen, the working group’s secretary and first programme leader, who now runs the Y-Foundation developing supported and affordable housing. When the policy was being devised just over a decade ago, the four people who came up with what is now widely known as the Housing First principle – a social scientist, a doctor, a politician and a bishop – called their report Nimi Ovessa (Your Name on the Door). That, after all, is all part of having a home – and part of a housing policy that has now made Finland the only EU country where homelessness is falling. It is important that they are tenants: each has a contract, pays rent and (if they need to) applies for housing benefit. It was clear to everyone the old system wasn’t working. Upstairs is where the 21 tenants, men and women, most under 30, live.
This is huge for me.”ĭownstairs in the two-storey block is a bright communal living and dining area, a spotless kitchen, a gym room and a sauna (in Finland, saunas are basically obligatory).
I’ve been in bad relationships same thing. “I’ve been in communes, but everyone was doing drugs and I’ve had to get out. T atu Ainesmaa turns 32 this summer, and for the first time in more than a decade he has a home he can truly say is his: an airy two-room apartment in a small, recently renovated block in a leafy suburb of Helsinki, with a view over birch trees.