Democrats want higher wages for workers instead of reducing the cost of living (rent, insurance, etc).
The way you fix housing is by building new housing, and letting old housing become the affordable housing.
Other countries have also directly attacked homelessness by simply building enough public housing such that anyone who wants a roof over their head can have one regardless of their ability to pay for it.
We don't mandate car manufacturers to build affordable cars (although they are free to). People with lower income rely (or should rely) on the used car market. Those cars are naturally affordable.
Car manufacturers build high margin cars for people with the money, people with the money leave a trail of used cars in their wake, people without money for a new car buy those used ones.
That's a totally sensible and functional market. No mandates or compelled charity needed.
There are very successful examples.
And on the car side, there's plenty of very cheap new options. I can literally lease a new EV for ~$100/month. Who's voluntarily building starter homes anymore? We built fleets of those in the 50s, without the song and dance that they were luxury and required time to turn into starter homes. If anything in a lot of places, the starter homes of the 50s are the relatively expensive housing of today.
Land is limited, meanwhile we've built cars for a century and maybe the last 40 yeses worth of cars are street compliant. The only thing comoarable for cars is showing what abundance can do for a market. Less people care about a 2026 Camaro being affordable if you can buy a used '05 camaro for $3000 (which is probably still and absurd price, but hey. That's less than two months of rent in CA)
For reference, that's $2100 or so of monthly take home pay for NYC's 16.50 minimum wage. Old wisdom would mean that this should make for $700 rental prices. But I'm sure few Gen Z are expecting rent to be 30% of income.
https://www.nrn.com/quick-service/california-lost-16-000-res...
"It has been almost one year since California implemented a $20 minimum wage for quick-service restaurant workers, and industry experts have been debating the long-term effects the wage jump would have on the industry’s job market.
As it turns out, thus far, the 33.3% wage increase for fast-food workers in California has resulted in almost 16,000 job losses — a decline of 2.8% — across the limited-service food industry from September 2023 (when AB 1228 was signed into law) until September 2024, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Since the law went into effect in April, California’s limited-service restaurant industry has seen an employment rate decline of 2.5%."
My cousins operate fast food stores, none in California. They are doing the same thing. Starbucks let the genie out of the bottle ~15 years ago with the app. Legacy fast food like McDonalds use apps to reduce labor with the incentives of high prices for counter sales and the perception of easier ordering.