Poll: Helsinki residents support even distribution of housing for homeless
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Well over half of Helsinki residents say that housing for the homeless should be built evenly in different parts of the city.
According to a poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat and conducted by Suomen Gallup, 64 per cent of Helsinki residents feel that residences for the homeless should not be limited to certain neighbourhoods.
Dr. Timo Kopomaa, who has studied issues of neighbourhood tolerance, says that even distribution would mean that no single residential area would be labelled negatively by such facilities.
“However we should think whether or not the balanced construction of service housing can ever be implemented in practice.”
Finland has an estimated 2,500 long-term homeless, of whom 60 per cent live in Helsinki.
Respondents to the poll were given a choice of four alternatives for solving the homelessness problem: even distribution of support housing, concentrating it in certain parts of the city, isolating the buildings from other residential areas, and not building such facilities at all.
Just under one in five residents support concentrating the special housing near existing homes.
“It would be cost-effective, and if social services in the area are already well established, local residents might not rise up against it”, Kopomaa says.
However, concentration has its negative sides as well
“With the concentration of support housing, problems might also be concentrated, and the area could come under excessive strain.”
Building support housing away from other residential areas is not seen by Kopomaa as being in keeping with current thinking. Helsinki residents agree. Only five per cent of respondents felt that this option would work the best.
“It could lead to the establishment of a kind of masked institution outside normal society. The model would also be discriminatory”, Kopomaa says.
“Naturally there are always those who would be happy for a solution in which the problem is swept out of sight.”
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 8.10.2008 - TODAY |
 Poll: Helsinki residents support even distribution of housing for homeless |
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