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Maybe it depends on the country. But after working with homeless people in the Netherlands I completely agree with you.

I helped homeless people who had a job but could not afford a house anymore for different reasons. Most were helped with housing after some time. But if that time is long the temptation to take more alcohol than you should is right around the corner.



The Netherlands has a pretty effective social housing program. Not flawless but millions of people have a roof over their head thanks to government assistance.


The effectiveness unfortunately has eroded over the past years. There's a huge supply gap in almost all major cities. Moving people to the other side of the country for a house might not always be a bad things (it could help them break away from a toxic social circle) but it also tears them away from family, their job and their support system.

With the forecast being that the housing crisis will last until 2030 I'm not sure how much longer it will be effective.


Recently published [1]: the waiting time for social housing has risen to over 7 years in large parts of the country.

when applying for social housing in Apeldoorn, there's on average 123 applicants for each home

[1] https://nos.nl/op3/artikel/2377995-sociale-huurwoning-in-zek...




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