I bought a 3-bed, 1-bath, 900-sqft bungalow in a solidly working-class St. Louis neighborhood in 2016 for $72k. I rented a nice 1100-sqft 1-bedroom in a nearby neighborhood for $625/mo a couple years before that. (Rents have not meaningfully changed in those neighborhoods).

I now rent a run-down, 350-sqft apartment in NYC for $2k/mo.

People on the coasts seem wildly out of touch with the housing situation in the Midwest. Cheap housing is the norm. It's simply not a problem in most of the country.