This is all just treating the abstraction as if it is the problem itself. People have houses when those houses are built. Built using debt. Built Amish-style, collectivist style.
To use your metaphor: you first need a ship. AFTER that we can discuss steering.
The problem in Soviet housing (and today in China housing) is that the entire population sabotages society, and builds very bad quality housing, and not nearly enough of it. Collective living can't compensate for that. In fact it doesn't matter what you use to compensate for the sabotage by society, because that just delays the breaking point by a bit, but the sabotage goes further and further until the sum total of all compensations you utilize aren't enough anymore to even keep people alive. That can take decades, but if Stalin couldn't stop the sabotaging going further and further by killing hundreds of millions, exactly what measure are you hoping will stop it? (not implying communal living is exactly the same as communism, but it is one example)
When collective housing means a floor of a tall building for each generation, with mostly independent rooms and perhaps a single collective living room on the ground floor, it is quite comfortable and you have the advantages and none of the costs.
When collective housing means 3 generations living on <50m2 apartments where the warm water supply is mostly a theoretical thing (Soviet, China living), frankly, even having the entire apartment to yourself wouldn't make it particularly comfortable ...