Affordable housing is something that would actually be solved by free markets. It's the heavily regulated (almost socialistic) systems when building new homes to new people in a growing city is not allowed (because the old residents don't want their city to grow), so supply is now allowed to meet the demand, when we have these problems.

It's supposed to be a part of basic income to pay enough for someone to be able to afford rent and to and choose where to live that's within their budget. If it was a separate thing, perhaps people could be given a choice among places with a low cost of living, and then the amount needed for basic income would be lower. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Edit: Manna was more relevant than I thought:

> The government had finally figured out that giving choices to people on welfare was not such a great idea, and it was also expensive. Instead of giving people a welfare check, they started putting welfare recipients directly into government housing and serving them meals in a cafeteria. If the government could drive the cost of that housing and food down, it minimized the amount of money they had to spend per welfare recipient.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna4.htm