Because of neoliberal policies. Some governments around the world did incentivise and even footed the bill for building public housing before neoliberalism took hold; for example the Swedish Million Programme [0] built 1 million dwellings between 1965-1974 where the government took the risk on 66% of the building costs to be repaid by tenants over 30 years.
This system of building houses was completely scrapped by neoliberals, letting the "market" take control of supply with the government taking a background stance of mostly zoning out where they'd incentivise building new dwellings.
I can see in a not-so-distant future talks about this kind of program being reignited in politics, the neoliberal approach has absolutely failed us.
This system of building houses was completely scrapped by neoliberals, letting the "market" take control of supply with the government taking a background stance of mostly zoning out where they'd incentivise building new dwellings.
I can see in a not-so-distant future talks about this kind of program being reignited in politics, the neoliberal approach has absolutely failed us.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Programme