I recently listed to an NPR Planet Money podcast regarding the housing shortage. One of the points they mentioned was that the number of people joining construction related trade schools (plumber, electricians, etc) dropped because the construction industry was decimated after the 2008 crash. It takes 5+ years for someone to go to school, get an apprenticeship and become skilled in their trade. This scarcity is also impacting the ability to build new homes (apart from the zoning laws and NIMBYism that prevents building new high-density housing). The pandemic is more of a short term supply-shock which is exaggerating the situation.
Edit: edited to include year