A multitude of international media outlets — from The Guardian to the Canadian national broadcaster CBC — have cited Finland as a shining example of a nation that is 'solving' homelessness.
This week APN scratches under the surface of Finland's homeless "miracle", and finds that while the numbers of homeless people are dropping across almost every demographic, the trend for immigrants is accelerating in the opposite direction.
"People who have migrated to Finland, who do not speak Finnish that well, they might lack social networks, and they don't know the system in Finland, where to find the right services and support," Heini Puurunen, of the NGO No Fixed Abode, tells APN.
Listen to the episode via this embedded player, on Yle Areena, via Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
We also hear how the official numbers may not even tell the full story, due to the disparate ways in which data is collected.
"There is this group of hidden homeless in Finland and of course we need to be quite serious about that phenomenon as well," Juha Kahila of the Y-Foundation, tells the show.
In addition, with over half a million people set to feel the effects of the government's social welfare reforms, researcher Nasibeh Hedayati of the Blue Ribbon foundation notes that the problem could be about to get worse.
"We are worried, everyone in our organisation is worried, because Blue Ribbon provides support for a wide range of people going through housing challenges and our team specifically focuses on migrants," Hedayati says.
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This week's show was presented by Ronan Browne and Miyuki Jokiranta. The sound engineer was Anders Johansson.
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