Chapter 2 explores how American policymakers built a government-sponsored housing finance model during and after the Great Depression. While the country entered the depression without major national housing programs, it emerged with an expansive toolkit of demand-side housing policies. The FDR administration discovered that subsidizing home mortgages would produce economic cascade effects by stimulating bank lending, construction, employment, wages, and consumer spending, reinforcing the country's emerging demand-led growth regime. The core idea behind New Deal housing programs was to transform mortgage markets to lower the cost for borrowers and minimize risk for creditors. These initiatives included the Federal Housing Administration's mortgage insurance program, which offered affordable mortgages to millions of homeowners - although excluding racialized minorities. These housing initiatives helped overcome the depression and permanently made housing finance a "national champion," albeit one heavily dependent on state support. Reinforcing housing-based growth became a routine response to address economic challenges well into the post-WWII period.