Tatu 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.
Its a big miracle, he says. Ive been in communes, but everyone was doing drugs and Ive had to get out. Ive been in bad relationships; same thing. Ive been on my brothers sofa. Ive slept rough. Ive never had my own place. This is huge for me.
Downstairs 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). Upstairs is where the 21 tenants, men and women, most under 30, live.
It is important that they are tenants: each has a contract, pays rent and (if they need to) applies for housing benefit. 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.
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).
It was clear to everyone the old system wasnt working; we needed radical change, says Juha Kaakinen, the working groups secretary and first programme leader, who now runs the Y-Foundation developing supported and affordable housing.
We had to get rid of the night shelters and short-term hostels we still had back then. They had a very long history in Finland, and everyone could see they were not getting people out of homelessness. We decided to reverse the assumptions.
As in many countries, homelessness in Finland had long been tackled using a staircase model: you were supposed to move through different stages of temporary accommodation as you got your life back on track, with an apartment as the ultimate reward.
We decided to make the housing unconditional, says Kaakinen. To say, look, you dont need to solve your problems before you get a home. Instead, a home should be the secure foundation that makes it easier to solve your problems.
With state, municipal and NGO backing, flats were bought, new blocks built and old shelters converted into permanent, comfortable homes among them the Rukkila homeless hostel in the Helsinki suburb of Malminkartano where Ainesmaa now lives.
Housing Firsts early goal was to create 2,500 new homes. It has created 3,500. Since its launch in 2008, the number of long-term homeless people in Finland has fallen by more than 35%. Rough sleeping has been all but eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night shelter remains, and where winter temperatures can plunge to -20C.
The citys deputy mayor Sanna Vesikansa says that in her childhood, hundreds in the whole country slept in the parks and forests. We hardly have that any more. Street sleeping is very rare now.
In England, meanwhile, government figures show the number of rough sleepers a small fraction of the total homeless population climbed from 1,768 in 2010 to 4,677 last year (and since the official count is based on a single evening, charities say the real figure is far higher).
But Housing First is not just about housing. Services have been crucial, says Helsinkis mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, who was housing minister when the original scheme was launched. Many long-term homeless people have addictions, mental health issues, medical conditions that need ongoing care. The support has to be there.
We need this in Anchorage. There is this one block downtown next to a homeless restaurant called Bean's Cafe, where like 100 homeless live in tents up and down the street. Some of them just set up the tent on the sidewalk. It's the worst i ever saw