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1.3.2022

Number of homeless people in Finland falling also among immigrants

Veera Vilkama
Getty Images Pro
The Housing Financing and Development Agency (ARA) has published statistics on homelessness for 2021. This article comments the statistic from the perspective of immigrants.

The Housing Financing and Development Agency (ARA) has published statistics on homelessness for 2021. Homelessness has been falling in Finland for a long time and the latest statistics show that the positive trend continued last year. In November 2021, there were around 4000 homeless people in Finland. Despite this good development, even one homeless person is too many in the Finnish climate. 

Since 2016, Moniheli's Katto program has been working to prevent homelessness among immigrants in Finland. The number of immigrants and foreign language speakers experiencing homelessness also decreased by more than 200 people in 2021, but the number of long-term homeless increased among immigrants and foreign language speakers experiencing homelessness. In 2021, there were 720 homeless people of immigrant origin. Of these, 30% were long-term homeless, i.e. people who have been homeless for at least a year or more or have experienced repeated homelessness in the last three years, and whose housing is substantially impaired by a social or health problem. 

In Finland as a whole, 18% of all homeless people were of immigrant origin, i.e. had moved to Finland or were foreign-language speakers. The proportion was even higher in large cities. In Helsinki Metropolitan Area and Turku, homeless people with an immigrant background accounted for around 25% of all single people experiencing homelessness. 

Helsinki plays an essential role in preventing homelessness in Finland. Half of all homeless people lived in Helsinki in 2021. The City of Helsinki's strategic goal to eradicate homelessness by 2025 and the measures to achieve it are crucial for the development of homelessness in Finland. 

The statistics break down the proportion of men, women, young people and people with an immigrant background among all those experiencing homelessness. The statistics do not show how these groups intersect. More accurate statistics would help to prevent homelessness and target services more accurately. 

ARA publishes statistics on single people and families experiencing homelessness annually. The statistics are a description of the situation in November 2021 and are collected through a survey of municipalities. Data on people experiencing homelessness is collected differently in the municipalities, so the statistics are not an accurate representation of the number of homeless people. The homelessness statistics do not include people without a right of residence in the municipality, such as undocumented or unregistered EU citizens, even if they are homeless.  

The ARA statistics raise hopes about the situation of homelessness prevention in Finland. It is good that the positive trend also applies to immigrants and foreign-language speakers. When reading the statistics, it must be remembered that some homeless people are not included and that the way in which the statistics are collected makes them inaccurate. However, the change is clearly positive. 

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