Ah, see, the way I read the article is that it is saying that they have already decided that this is the standard for a crisis, not that we have decided. Where "they" in this case is the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and perhaps also the author and maybe by implication the editorial voice of CNBC. I don't see an attempt being made to put words in my mouth; I see an author using their own words to make an argument mostly based on a study by another institution.

You're right that articles and studies often use terms like "housing crisis" that don't have objective definitions in a way that fits their subjective definition without doing any throat-clearing to call that out. But I don't think there is any real way around that, it seems like you just have to read things with that in mind. Maybe I'm wrong though. Should every article say things like, "there is no objective definition of a housing crisis, but the NLIHC believes this should be considered one". Perhaps they should!