There is a difference between intentionally failing and the overall idea being useless. Just because Republicans have been gutting public investments for decades does not mean other nations haven’t made it work. Hell, a preliminary search in my corner and it seems most government housing is just financing private housing these days. We even have the discussions on NPR here and it will be private building going forward with mandatory fixed affordability. So all in all the public access will still be private but with some expected to be available for cheap. At least for a few years and then we tend to forget about it.