No, but making it a "right" or "public utility" forces the government (which can, albeit non-magically, conjure up fresh supply) to conjure up fresh supply.
Flint, Michigan is a "pretty poor" city in Michigan (personally, I don't know how poor it actually is, it might be a "normal" town). The city was trying to save on the cost of providing water. They decided to switch from (I think) buying water from Detroit to pumping from one of the Great Lakes. This decision is pretty benign. Except somewhere in there, the chemical are up of the water changed, so years of building up inside the pipes cleared up, exposing lead in the pipes, poisoning the residents... Except water treatment processes failed to detect amd clean the water, so it lasted for years. It made national headlines so much so that my church (in Texas) was raising money and sending it up there. Plenty of people got fired, people got sewed, politicians said grand things. Oh, right, and poor (black) people got screwed over.
TL;DR, "Flint, Michigan" is the short way of saying "the government could screw you over by poisoning your water"
Kinda. Social housing should strive to compete with private housing. Gov has long term investment incentive plus they control the demand (interest rates) AND supply (permits).
1. you realize that in many parts of the US, they're not actually public utilities? PG&E is privately owned, for instance is a publicly traded for profit company.
2. Water and electricity are public utilities because they're a natural monopoly. It doesn't make sense for 3 different water/electricity companies to lay 3 sets of pipes/wires to serve one city, so we let one company do it. Needless to say, the same does not apply to shelter.
Edit. I would like to provide more information but it is such a complicated and broad topic that I could do it justice but I recommend looking into it. Just the various tariff schedules are interesting to read.
My water is provided by the city, providing the bare minimum effort that is legal. I don't want my house to be the bare minimum, too. I want a beautiful house that has room for my family to grow. I want a park near by, good restaurants, and good schools. My house costs more than other houses within 50 miles because I want a nice house - I don't want a government sponsored house
