It's a global phenomenon, caused by infinite growth based economic modeling (you know, where you base your whole economy on extracting increasing amounts of value from finite resources).

This type of modeling has been proven wrong and debunked early in the previous century, but it is still practised because it works very well for those gaining most of the profits.

You'll usually hear the politicians promoting policies that help the larger companies argue that such policies directly create jobs and thus economic value for the people. But this is more of that trickle-down economics bullshit that doesn't apply in the real world.

Because politicians worldwide have been so fixated on financial gains as a measure of the economy, they fail to measure and correct on (mental) healthcare, housing, education and equality.

Just some context on how large our housing problems have become: There is currently a deficit of 450 000 homes, which is projected to grow past 500 000 by the end of 2024.

The time we stop running countries like we do companies is when we'll see things improve.