A Nordic model for the homeless

Governments cannot solve all of the problems that take people from their own homes to sleeping bags, blankets, and cardboard tents in doorways on city streets, an all too familiar sight now not only in Cork and Dublin, but also across Europe.

The problem generates much hand-wringing when temperatures drop below zero — that’s when people can die in doorways; that’s when it’s an embarrassment for cities that have tourism promotion programmes — but with the warmer months comes the tendency for us to look the other way, stopping now and again to toss coins into a hat and then hurrying on.