Economy

We need massive public investment in housing again. We current have market failure in affordable housing. As you say, the incentives just aren't there to build it for profit.

Before the Reagan revolution, the US invested a lot into affordable housing, especially in the post-war era.

In the 1990s, there was a burst of construction using low-income housing tax credits to incentivize private investors to build affordable housing. They received tax breaks for keeping rents pegged to incomes. https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2025/514

Unfortunately, that housing is now "graduating" from the tax incentive period, and is reverting to "market rents", or being purchased by hedge funds. It would be cheaper for the government to repurchase these properties to keep low-income housing than to build new. Or possibly to convert some of the commercial properties that are on the market for cheap.