If you don't use price to determine who receives a scarce good, then you're stuck with other bad mechanisms. In Stockholm, for example, waiting lists for apartments can be over a decade long.

Much better to recognize that "The problem is not that there isn't sufficient housing" is wrong and legalize building more housing.

That's what people say until they are on the shitty end of the deal. The distorted housing markets in Germany are pretty rough for newcomers -- think immigrants (not a minority group, refugee, etc), international students, seasonal workers...

Those people either don't know enough about the system to take advantage of it, or don't have enough time to wait in waiting lists, so they end up paying twice what their native peers pay. But hey, they don't have a vote anyway, so it's all good...