Finland tried to end homelessness. What can we learn from its runaway success – and recent failures?

The Housing First policy led to the number of homeless people in Finland dropping by half. Those with firsthand experience explain why it worked

At 3.30am, Vello Senkel awoke to a knock on his door. Standing on his doorstep were his neighbours with an urgent request: “Do you have salt? We want to boil macaroni.” He acquiesced, but it turned out that salt wasn’t the only ingredient they were missing: “And do you also have macaroni?” His warm face, framed by jaw-length white hair, is at once charmed and outraged as he recounts the interaction while smoking a cigarette outside his apartment building the following morning.

Senkel, whose nickname is Velho (Finnish for wizard), is known for his proficiency in the kitchen. In his apartment, where he lives alongside 77 other formerly homeless people in a Helsinki suburb, he shows me his fully stocked freezer. From his neatly organised fridge he pulls out the jars of pickled cabbage and shrimp salad he has prepared to take to a friend’s house for lunch later.