> Here's the problem: * If no one had to pay, no one would. * We've tried free housing before - it suffered tragedy of the commons

Here's the actual problem. You've based your argument on a debunked economic theory ie the tragedy of the commons. You may as well argue trickle down economics.

Garrett Hardin wrote an essay called The Tragedy of the Commons in 1968 [1] and it became all the rage in neoliberal circles to justify wealth transfer to private hands (ie privatization) [2]. It never fit experimental data. Ultimately, Elinor Ostrom debunked it entirely using empircal data from the world over, work for which she won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics [3].

Whatever your arguments against free housing might be, the tragedy of the commons ain't it.

[1]: https://math.uchicago.edu/~shmuel/Modeling/Hardin,%20Tragedy...

[2]: https://socialistproject.ca/2008/08/b133/

[3]: https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false...