The explosion in housing costs is due to economic rent paid to finance with intermediaries like landlords and NIMBY groups. As a financialized asset new housing is only built under the expectation of not just profit, but rapidly accelerating profit, with the lendor using the collateral to make overleveraged trades. Existing housing benefits from this upward pressure and the limit it places on new housing, which must now compete for space and location with other financialized real estare ventures like bazinga-filled office buildings and a third Starbucks in a 4-block radius.

This would all still happen even if rich people paid more taxes. It is an outcome of financialized housing, itself a direct product of capitalism, particularly neoliberalism.

Also the fact that they're all white is really telling on itself. Everyone else has had to deal with this sooner and in greater extremes but they only care when it impacts enough white people.