The cornerstone of unity

65 24-HOUR SERVICE HOMES
At over a hundred events I have asked the audience to tell me the largest group of people in Finland that live in 
24- hour service homes, meaning a decent flat (with at least a toilet, running water, kitchenette and living room) 
with 24-hour service or surveillance. People usually suggest the elderly, or sometimes even prisoners in their 
cells, but nobody has yet come up with the right answer. 
Which is of course: we family people. Every day there are phone calls asking what time you will be home, 
saying there’s nothing to eat in the fridge, telling you to buy cat food, wondering who you are drinking with, and 
suggesting that you don’t drink quite as much as you did the night before. There is strict control, but when 
homemade bread and a full breakfast sits waiting for you in the morning you have to admit that the service is 
excellent. But what about those who live alone, people with no family? Does anyone care? 
In the 1980s, Finland, which was at that time the most institutionalised country in the world, started to move 
towards a more out-patient based system. As the elderly population grew in relative terms and became more 
frail, so began the construction of homes for the aged, followed by nursing homes and then whole buildings for 
the elderly. The amount of services provided was increased gradually, first focusing on daylight hours and then 

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being implemented on a 24-hour basis. 
But people under 65 were forgotten. When the capacity of mental hospitals was cut 
– the amount of beds was 
slashed from 20,000 to 6,000 
– patients were decanted into dilapidated dormitories and nursing or rehabilitation 
homes, and the same was true of mentally handicapped people. Alcoholics were also packed off to shabby 
dorms and hostels, as were criminals released from prison. 
When the sub-tenancy system was practically abolished by the construction of student flats (innovation no. 64) 
in the 1970s 
– 20 years later than it was in Sweden – the only big groups obliged to live in such conditions were the 
mentally ill, the mentally handicapped and a section of the senile elderly and neurologically disabled. Their 
numbers run into thousands. 
According to the Services and Assistance for the Disabled Act (1988) the housing conditions of the severely 
disabled were to be sorted out by 1992, and this was successful with regards to physically disabled and visually 
or aurally impaired people, for whom their respective organisations built over a thousand independent one-room 
flats. The acts and regulations regarding the disabled were not applied to the mentally ill or mentally 
handicapped, however, so their housing conditions remained considerably poorer 
– as did their social status. 
People who become ill at an early age are left with only the state pension, but this was meant to provide security 
in old age, not for young people to live on. 
There are three big groups that benefit from 24-hour service homes: 
1.
A section of people living alone: approximately 10% of mentally ill people that live alone cannot cope by 
themselves; 
2.
The service homes would allow a couple of thousand people who live in institutions to carry on a normal life at a 
decreased cost to the state; 
3.
There are approximately 70,000 adult Finns still living with their elderly parents or family members. This number 
includes e.g. government officials, students and single people who are taking care of their parents, but is mainly 
comprised of men (85%) and women (15%) who for one reason or another have failed to find their feet. 
There is no comprehensive study on this group. Oiva Antti Mäki studied 3,500 mentally handicapped adults 
living with their parents for his doctoral theses, and the name of his publication says it all: I wish I could live a 
day longer than my child. Most of the people in this group would like to live more independently, in service 
homes, but they cannot cope by themselves and are not willing to live in group homes or institutions. 
According to estimates, at least 2,000 service homes should be constructed for the mentally ill, and other 
2,000 for the mentally handicapped 
– part of them for neurologically handicapped people, alcoholics and people 
released from prison. It is impossible to abolish homelessness without constructing 24-hour service homes. 
Their construction could be partly financed by the money that would be saved by removing people from 
institutions, but the problem is not the construction itself but the fact that decisions regarding 24-hour service 
home maintenance is decentralised, in the hands of almost 500 municipalities which have so far preferred to 
locate people in privately owned, generally substandard group homes (“service homes”). The basic requirement 
should be decent accommodation, and services could then be privately arranged to complement this. 
Finland’s Slot Machine Association (innovation no. 17), Y-Foundation (innovation no. 62), ASPA Housing 
Services Foundation, and certain other foundations including disabled people’s organisations have now started 
to construct a network of 24-hour service homes in Finland, but only 25% of the needs of people under 65 have 
been met. The only way to remedy this situation is to work at a faster pace. 
Ilkka Taipale 
– Member of Parliament 1971–1975, 2000–2007