“won’t actually fix the housing issue” - I’m curious how a lot more availability will fail to drive prices down, which will at least help the housing issue.
The housing crisis is mostly due to not enough supply of housing.
Legislating short term rentals like airBnB helps some, but the real fix is just building a lot more housing. Letting neighborhoods densify from single family homes to row houses or small condominiums. Building more missing middle housing like duplexes and triplexes. Building 5 over 1s.
If prices haven’t fallen, you haven’t built enough units yet.
Because the stuff you hear about there being a ton of vacant housing is mostly due to the technical governmental definition of vacant housing not lining up with the colloquial.