Or, hear me out. Give everyone $1000 (which should scale with inflation & COL) and say "this should cover part of your rent, food, clothes, etc."

No one is asking the government to start their own free clothing production company.

As for a waiting list, not really. There are other countries where housing units are required to be non-profit and rented at cost. They also have a ~30% market share of private housing units that are for-profit. The non-profit drives the cost of for-profit housing units to be competitive and barely above cost. There are little to no waiting lists. And no the places aren't shitty.

That last argument is just fear.