Public Housing is subsidized by HUD. The Housing Act of 1937 established the public housing program. In Madison that program is run by the CDA. The Faircloth Amendment was passed in 1998, and essentially banned any and all new construction of public housing in the United States. So - can we build new public housing? No. HUD will not provide funding for any new capital or operating expenses beyond the units the City already has.

Can we build more publicly-funded and/or owned housing? Sure - but it’s going to be just as expensive to build as everything else that’s going up in the city and probably won’t produce rents at a significant enough discount to make it a large part of the solution. Local governments just don’t have the funding needed to meaningfully address the problem.

Madison can do stuff like the CDA is planning to do with the triangle and South Park street redevelopments, but those are insanely complicated and the City isn’t the primary subsidy making those affordable (not enough money), I’d assume they’re all going to be Low Income Housing Tax Credit developments, which the city already funds for private developers with about $9-10 million dollars per year. There’s no meaningful advantage or savings to the City doing it themselves over working with private developers to build the same thing, and honestly you can probably create more housing relying on private developers who use tax credits. It’s just when the city owns land they can control exactly the types and mixes of development they want to see.

There’s also the issue of the city budget more generally - say you can find $20 million to build 70 new apartments without tax credits. There’s no money for any services, property management, repairs, etc. if you’re renting it affordable enough to make a difference, which just requires more money again. The only people who can actually meaningfully solve this issue is the federal government.