“For the better part of the last half century, federal governments of different partisan stripes, by the way, liberal and conservatives, have stepped away from forwarding affordable housing in this country,” he said. “That should never have happened, but it did.”

It is refreshing to hear someone from cabinet actually admit this. I really hope that their cabinet retreat results in some aggressive house building policy. They need to turn this around, now. We need to see post-World War 2 levels of house building if we want to get ahead of the housing crisis. It isn’t cheap to do, but I wouldn’t doubt that an outright housing crash would wipe out far more of the economy than what it takes to go on a housing blitz.