From Thriving to Flourishing: What Finland Teaches Kingston About Real Support
In Kingston, too many people who finally get housed don't stay housed for long. The cycle repeats: from shelter, to housing, and back to the streets. Finland faced the same crisis decades ago - but their results have been strikingly different. Why? Because in Finland, the support doesn't stop at a roof over someone's head.
The simple truth is this: housing is the start, not the finish. In Helsinki, once a person is housed, the work continues - helping them climb up what psychologists call Maslow's hierarchy of needs. First comes surviving: the basics of food, shelter, safety. Then comes thriving: stability, belonging, and purpose. And finally comes flourishing: where people contribute, create, and self-actualize with dignity.
People who are ready to move on up often start tentatively. I have seen this at Belle Park with many of the residents who contribute to the Feed the People tent by cleaning up after meals and caring for the tent between serving times. There are people at Belle Park who are just surviving and wanting to step into thriving, as demonstrated by their actions.
Finland's Housing First program is world-famous, but its real secret is the next step - connecting housing with supports that move people from mere survival toward thriving and flourishing. That means mental health care - but often not in the way we imagine. In Finland, community itself is treated as a form of care: genuine human connection that is authentic, not just performed as someone's job, works wonders for mental health. Employment pathways are another piece. What we might dismiss as "make-work projects" are sometimes exactly what people need in the short term - structured activity that stabilizes and builds confidence until they're ready for more. Add to that social connection and opportunities for personal growth, and the ladder upward starts to take shape.
In Kingston, by contrast, too often the system stops at survival. We provide the shelter - or "permanent housing" - but fail to provide the psychological dimension: the community, the dignity, and the opportunities that make stability stick. Without that, it's easy to see why some fall out of "adequate" permanent housing.
Councillor Glenn's and my Dignified Housing Strategy (DHS) aims to change that. Its purpose is to end chronic homelessness by meeting people where they are, physically and psychologically, in ways that create the conditions for growth. To go from barely making it, to building a life. To stop cycling through services and start contributing to community.
In Helsinki, this approach has worked: people stay housed because they are supported to move forward, not left behind. And that support is not always clinical or expensive. Sometimes it's as simple as structured opportunities to thrive - peer-support groups that meet to cook meals or tend shared gardens, job coaches who help people re-enter the workforce gradually, or neighbourhood programs that welcome people into choirs, sports clubs, or art classes. These are affordable, often free, but profoundly effective supports. They stabilize people and they create momentum. Momentum that moves people to want to move up psychological ladder.
One crucial condition is scale. Finland doesn't warehouse people in mega-sites. Those who want to move up the psychological ladder are invited into communities that want them, at a human scale. In Kingston, we often do the opposite: concentrating culturally significant numbers of people experiencing homelessness in a new neighbourhood and expecting integration to follow. The result is usually stigma, tension, and segregation. This does not solve homelessness. this merely perpetually manages the problem at a high financial and human cost. Real solutions come from creating opportunities for growth, belonging, and connection.
One of the clearest signs of flourishing is the willingness to give back. In Finland, residents who once relied on Housing First now mentor newcomers, sit on co-op boards, and run neighbourhood events. The desire to contribute is the seed of flourishing - but that seed can only grow if people first reach thriving. That's why Finland consistently ranks as the happiest country in the world: because people are given security, and because they are invited to grow, connect, and contribute at their own pace. These are the same critical ingredients the DHS seeks to embed here in Kingston.
I was reminded of this just this week when Councillor Conny Glenn and I were invited to attend Kingston Interval House's 50th Anniversary Gala. KIH is more than a shelter - it is a cornerstone of safety and empowerment for women, children, and youth affected by intimate partner violence, family violence, and domestic abuse. Guided by the voices of survivors, it provides refuge, healing, and hope. In Maslow's terms, KIH is a bridge: it moves women and their children from surviving to thriving, and sometimes all the way to flourishing.
At the Gala we heard the story of an immigrant survivor whose partner brought her to Canada, isolated her with her newborn, and used the system against her to maintain control. KIH helped her break free, supported her recovery, and worked with her through an imperfect system closer to how it was meant to function - to help. She shared her story with courage, and when I spoke briefly with her, one message stood out: the desperate need for permanent affordable housing for women exiting second-stage programs. Affordable is the key word - but another, quieter need is just as important: community. Without community, housing risks being only survival, where people need thriving and opportunities for flourishing.
The lesson for Kingston is clear. Housing without support is an expensive revolving door. But housing with dignity—with food, trust, connection, and pathways to growth—is an affordable foundation for flourishing.
That's the real promise of the DHS: to help us move from costly managing crises, to building a city where every resident has the chance not only to survive, not only to thrive, but to truly flourish. In the coming months, after consultations, co-creation, and listening carefully to those with the most knowledge and lived experience, the full Dignified Housing Strategy will be publicly presented. For the best results, City Council's support will be important. But even if that support is not forthcoming, the work does not end there. The best ideas are already emerging from the community, and government's role should be to strengthen them - to help make good solutions better, more effective, and sustainable.
In our sixth piece we will look at a model of permanent housing that takes into consideration all of what I learned in Finland and applies it in Kingston.