British Columbia

Council housing in Britain between the 50s and privatization, not only did the price of the entire market remain affordable because of the competition but the quality vastly improved given the need for any private developer to do better than the government with its massive economies of scale, near free land, and effectively no taxes on itself.

If you have long waitlists, you by definition do not have enough public housing to meet demand, and need to make more. We wouldn’t say schools didn’t work because look, our town only has enough space in its public school to admit half the towns children, guess it’s just a lottery and we should shut it down.

Real estate, building apartments, this is an immensely profitable industry, and its absurd to assume that it suddenly not only becomes unprofitable but is a massive tax burden just because the government is developing the land and not a billionaire doing near the same thing but walking away with an absurd profit skimmed off the top.

At least not unless the government is so obsessed with the free market that it is just renting existing apartments instead of the normal method of developing a new complex with a bunch of apartments, using most as cheap public housing for people who need assistance and renting the rest out at market rate to cover the cost of the project.