I mean, they can only do that, because people are willing to pay that. Just increase the supply and prices should go down
You could make the same argument about medical care in the US. Shelter is a survival need. You can't just go without it if it's too expensive. So (like medical care) it makes no sense for there to be no public option to exert downward pressure on the market. Really it makes no sense for so much of the stock to be in a market at all, but at the very least there should be a viable public option. (Public housing stock in the US is incredibly insufficient and there are decade-longs waitlists for housing vouchers.)
However, a large number of policymakers in this country (and probably most countries) are landlords and very few are renters. Expecting a class to act against their own interests because it's the right thing to do is naive.