Just yesterday I listened to an news segment with a guest who went on and on about how the "housing crisis" = there aren't enough homes, because we haven't been building enough homes, so what we need to do is build more homes.
"18.4 million empty homes."
It would seem we don't have a "housing crisis." We have an everything-else-crisis. The fact that people can't afford one of the existing 18.4 million empty homes is just one effect of that.