We've got a housing crisis because environmentalists and the government are standing in the way of capitalist developers building enough homes. At least that is what many in the news media tells us.

America is running out of houses amid a historic housing shortage and record-high selling prices.

A recent bank note from Jefferies said the US was short 2.5 million homes, while Freddie Mac put that estimate higher at a shortage of 3.8 million. There are 40% fewer homes on the market than last year, a Black Knight report found.

Something about that reasoning doesn't feel right. Sort of like a supposed "labor shortage", which can be blamed on poor people getting "free money", rather than employers not paying wages that people can actually live on.
BTW, that "free money" is about to vanish in a month or two, right around the same time that the eviction moratoriums will expire.
If you think "how come poor people, and the government trying to help poor people, is always the problem, rather than the wealthy people that control the economy and the government? Am I crazy to think that this sounds like bullsh*t?"
You are not crazy.
It's all bullsh*t. What is actually happening is that our laws are specifically designed to encourage speculation in real estate, while completely ignoring the fact that shelter is one of the three basic needs of a human being.

Think of it this way: when was the last time you heard someone celebrate rising food prices? Food is a basic need. You'll die without it. So why is rising housing prices a good thing when it will mean that thousands of families will become homeless and some of them will literally die from being homeless?
There are millions of empty homes in this country, while children sleep on our streets.

The White House reports that as of 2019, over half a million Americans don’t have a home to sleep in on any given night, while almost 17 million potential homes were standing empty. If the overall numbers of homeless citizens weren’t shocking enough, between 2017 and 2019, there was an increase of over 34,000 unsheltered homeless people nationally - even before a global pandemic and expected recession.

All this, while the number of empty properties around the country has increased by over 1.1 million since 2010, leaving over 12% of all housing units in the US vacant as of the latest figures in 2018.
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There are 59 empty properties for each homeless person in the US, an increase of 43% since 2010.
Since 2010, the number of empty properties per homeless person has increased 24%

The only shortage of homes are ones for sale. We've got a huge glut of empty homes.
So why is that? Simply, the wealthy ruling class has decided to return the economy to a rentier economy, like in the middle ages.
So let's look at a sampling of the actors involved. This is only a sampling.
We'll start with someone who is really easy to hate because he's measurably evil.

Billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation has bankrolled three conservative legal groups leading the court battle to eliminate prohibitions against tenant evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic in America.

At the same time, Koch’s corporate empire has suddenly stepped up its real estate purchases during the pandemic – including making large investments in real estate companies with a potential financial interest in eliminating eviction restrictions.
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Last April, a month into the pandemic, Koch Real Estate Investments made a “$200m preferred-equity investment in Amherst Holdings LLC’s single-family rental business”, according to the corporate law firm Jones Day, which said it advised the Koch Industries subsidiary on the deal. Amherst says that since 2012, “its affiliated funds have acquired and operated more than 30,000 homes”.

Starting last May, Koch Real Estate Investments began a financial relationship with Ladder Capital Corp., culminating in a $32m equity investment in December. Ladder finances residential real estate, and the Wall Street Journal recently reported that its subsidiaries’ loans to Donald Trump have been scrutinized by prosecutors.

Koch Real Estate Investments was also among a group of investors that last month bought an ownership stake in SmartRent, a landlord technology company.

You've got to give Koch credit. They don't shy away from being morally bankrupt.
Of course Koch is just one of many huge investment firms that are buying up whole neighborhoods.

Then there is the group that you don't naturally think of when it comes to this topic.

In suburban neighborhoods near cities such as Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix, blocks of families are sending monthly rent checks to ventures backed by Canadian pension funds, European insurers, and Asian or Middle Eastern government-run funds.

The overseas investors are following in the footsteps of many big U.S. investment firms and pension funds, which started buying single-family homes on a large scale in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Foreign investors barely registered in these markets a few years ago. Now, they account for nearly a third of institutional investment in single-family rental homes, said Alex Foshay, head of international capital markets at real-estate services firm Newmark.

“There’s been very limited overseas investment into the single-family rental space prior to Covid, but nothing on this scale,” he said.

German insurer Allianz SE last month said it is investing in a venture to buy more than $4 billion of U.S. rental homes. Singapore’s sovereign-wealth fund GIC is backing plans by Quinn Residences to buy single-family rental homes across the southeastern U.S., according to people familiar with matter.

Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board, meanwhile, said in January it agreed to a $700 million rental-home venture in partnership with Pretium Partners LLC. The venture has bought around 2,000 homes, said Pretium Chief Executive Donald Mullen. Foreign institutions have also invested in the Pretium’s funds targeting single-family rental homes, he added.

Today, more U.S. real-estate companies and Wall Street firms are buying in bulk or building single-family rental homes specifically for rentals, allowing foreign investors to back them with large sums of money.

Home builder Lennar Corp. , for example, recently launched a venture to buy single-family rental homes across the country. The company said it already has commitments from investors for $1.25 billion and will use that to buy $4 billion worth of homes. A number of these investors are based or affiliated with companies abroad, say people familiar with the matter. That includes Allianz Real Estate, a subsidiary of the German insurance giant, which said it committed $300 million.

Home prices are up 19% over last year, and are far above the price levels at the 2006 peak of the previous housing bubble.
Half of all houses sold, sold for more than their asking price.
25% of all houses sold were bought with all-cash.
Regular people can't compete with that.

This is where a government, that actually cared about the middle class and working class, would step in and stop this. Unfortunately, there isn't even a possibility of the government doing anything to stop this. At least not until after American society collapses.