Agreed, the only way to have affordable housing (and by affordable I don't in the slightest mean subsidized or low income housing) at the scale we need it does require a collapse in housing prices. It will be painful, but the low interest, low property tax, high return, sell over asking days need to end, and the profit made in real estate and housing needs to come from making housing at scale vs buying property and selling it, almost unimproved for more.
I don't think it is realistic to think government building of housing can realistically solve this crisis. It is part of the solution, but it is only a solution for people who can't work or have blockers to reasonable income. Housing today is such that there is a whole lot of people paid reasonable incomes but unable to afford housing and this needs to be solved by policy and incentives that get companies and investors into building, and that may cost the government over the short term but there are smart ways to to this that pay back over time.
Traditionally housing was between 2x and 4x average income, and now it is more than 10x income so to be affordable to the average person the housing prices need to drop by 60-70% or incomes need to go up 150%. Income going up 150% makes the cost of everything go up, whereas the cost of housing dropping 60-70% doesn't really impact the cost of much at all, it just erases investments that were only made possible by stupidly low and unsustainable interest rates. Basically people got rich by other people being in greater debt, no real value to cover this investment income existed in the market. We took money from the future and made some people rich now with it.
