May 11th - Why A Shortage of 'Affordable' Housing?

To see if and how problems result from capitalism's search for investment opportunities I'm going to look at the lack of housing. More to the point I'm looking at the lack 'affordable' housing ... 
Various reasons are given for lack of affordable housing:  too many immigrants, too little land for development.
But, as the Chairman for the CPRE, said in describing a Plymouth housing development in a letter to The Guardian - "Originally it was to be 50% affordable housing but the developers pleaded poverty and got this down to 17%. Now the government states that if affordable housing provision holds back building houses then they can be omitted altogether. So who will buy these unaffordable houses?  Chinese investors are already sniffing.'
More than 20 years after Thatcher's move towards a 'great property owning democracy' we find that ...
A third of council homes sold in the l980's under Margaret Thatcher's right-to-buy are now owned by private landlords
The multi-millionaire son of the Tory Housing Minister in the peak years of right-to-buy owns at least 40 ex-council flats in one South London estate
When a friend who rents a small house in rural Norfolk asked her landlord if he would sell the house to her he refused.  There are few other investments which would give such a healthy return as his rented out property.
In times of austerity investing in housing gives a good return. The beneficiaries? Buy-to-rent landlords and property developers.  The losers? The poorer section of the population who have no hope of buying; those on Housing Benefit who are being moved to cheaper areas; the countryside which is being buried under concrete because it's cheaper for developers to build on green belt than on brown field sites.
Many lose out on the basic right to a home while the rich reap the rewards of lucrative investments.