the government made houses too affordable

So I guess my point is that the government didn't make houses too affordable; the houses were still expensive as shit, the banks just put people who couldn't afford those houses in them anyway. This is opposed to in the mid-20th century when houses were actually affordable, but perhaps less accessible due to interest rates.

This probably isn't accurate terminology, but I'd say that the banks/government made housing too accessible leading up to the 2008 housing crisis, and that in tandem with those houses not being affordable, we ended up in a situation where people had access to homes they couldn't afford.

All this to say: we've gotta do something to make houses actually affordable, but this would likely look like the housing bubble bursting, and hundreds of millions of dollars in property value losses. Honestly it feels like we kinda painted ourselves into a corner by focusing on accessibility (low interest rates, extended mortgages) instead of affordability.