The problem — mounting homelessness amid a worsening shortage of affordable housing — nobody denies. The solution, however, is a matter of some argument, evidenced by a debate that erupted anew last week in a protest at City Hall.

Faith Action for Community Equity, a group of housing advocates, organized the protest that culminated in a request that the city resurrect its housing office, dismantled after a housing bribery scandal in 1998.

The event should serve as a reminder to the city administration and to the City Council that the housing crisis is only going to get worse as the state and nation struggle to move past the recession, and that addressing the problem is its mission.

But recreating a new agency to address it is extremely unlikely in an era when budgetary constraints is driving a shrinkage in the size of local government. Nor does it represent a good investment of taxpayer funds for the long term, given that the trend nationally is toward privatization of subsidized housing, both in its development and management.

One typical model has taken the form of public-private redevelopment partnerships funded in large part by federal revitalization grants under what's known as the HOPE program. That program thinned out during the Bush administration, but housing rehabilitation has been among the primary targets for stimulus funding approved by President Obama.

Funding is limited, and the way to get the greatest bang for the buck would be through partnerships with private developers and management firms, rather than through the recreation of another bureaucracy.

The city is preparing to put its 12 housing projects on the market. In that process, which will have City Council oversight, the public needs clear assurances, through lease and deed restrictions, that the city will retain and build on its current inventory of affordable units.

Throughout the nation, local governments have been deemed successful at meeting affordable housing needs when they use public money to foster the deals with private companies that can provide and maintain that housing in a sustainable manner.

Replicating that experience here, not the outer trappings of a re-established housing agency, is what matters.