There are a surprising number of homeless people who live off of their disability benefits. If they could find such an arrangement as described above, they wouldn’t be homeless anymore. But landlords have no incentive to take that risk with them, and they won’t pass any of the income screening processes that are baked in to the apartment rental process today. As the worst of our housing stock disappears, the fraction of the overall housing market that remains accessible to people like that becomes ever smaller.

Worse, it’s a ratcheting effect: it only works in one direction. Sure, as the new high end units go up, the previously acceptable ones look less desirable, but it takes a long time for a unit to reach the bottom rung. Plus, even if it’s now the least desirable building in town, if it belongs to a landlord unaccustomed that to renting to the poorest segment of society that can technically afford housing, it’s likely that landlord will not want to change their requirements and policies to begin renting to them. The landlord is likely to preferred to sell the property instead, which greatly increases the chances it will be redeveloped into luxury housing, and so on.