I’m a YIMBY. I think we need to build a shit load of apartments. I don’t care whether it’s state-owned or private. If we wanted to build a shit ton of public housing, we’d need to implement YIMBY policies anyway.
I don't really know if Marxism is relevant here, but I see bourgeois NIMBY homeowners trying to keep property values high at the expense of everyone else as a common enemy everyone needs to fight against.
Neoliberal YIMBYism is just trickle down economics for housing.
We have more empty housing units than homeless people, so building housing isn't really required anyway.
Building state owned housing of course would help immensely, provided the state supplies them to the homeless at a loss (ideally at no cost).
The way to solve homelessness is to give homeless people housing, directly. Not to build a bunch of housing and insist the market will sort it out. No landleech is going to accept a tenant who has little to no money, they'd rather the unit go empty. You could have a massive oversupply of housing but most people homeless now would still be homeless then if it's meant to be profitable.
Plus YIMBY policy usually involves letting developers build anywhere, including land that already has low income housing, leading to gentrification and poorer people being outpriced from their homes.