I bang the drum for public housing every time the issue of affordability comes up for a number of reasons. The #1 most livable city in the world is Vienna, Austria. Vienna has been running a fantastically successful public housing system for a century where better than 60% of the city lives in it. This has led to very affordable housing which is basically the only thing differentiating them from anyone on the list, other than perhaps scenery.
We as a society accept that healthcare is an area where the seller/purchaser dichotomy gives far too much power to the seller side of that equation. All the same arguments hold when speaking about housing and we need to adopt widespread public housing because it is both a financial no-brainer and morally the right thing to do.