I think the adjectives "affordable" and "subsidized" are equally loaded.

"Subsidized" assumes that the most important aspect of this housing is that someone else is helping to pay for it. Implicitly, it says "the recipients are freeloading." It assumes unstated conservative free market premises and ideologies.

"Affordable" assumes that the most important aspect of this housing is that it costs less and is therefore accessible to more people. It assumes unstated social democratic premises and ideologies.

It's instructive that Shafer notices one set of presumptions but not the other. But then we live in a society in which unstated, unquestioned free market assumptions -- sometimes reasonable, sometimes not -- are ubiquitous. It's like fish who don't notice the water they're swimming in.