> Asserting that e.g. people pooping in the street is caused strictly by expensive housing would require some mental gymnastics

Key word being strictly, i.e. expensive housing is the cause of street pooping, and there is ultimately no other way to prevent street pooping other than to reduce housing costs broadly.

Raising police salaries is obviously a much easier problem to solve, right? It is something that is already under government control and it can be modeled using a simple spreadsheet. Housing cost on the other hand is not really possible to model accurately, the system is too complex and has too many inputs.