[joe_the_user]

I think it's more saying that there is a line where making it easier and easier for tenants to defend themselves has effects on the total number of houses available for rent, and at a certain point, may reduce the number of housed people.

No number of lawyers allows a tenant to just flagrantly break the law.

The thing is, many landlords casually break the law and generally benefit from doing so - they fail to make timely repair, they take deposits unjustly and so-forth. Most tenants put up with this since fighting it isn't worth their while - the advantage the small opportunistic landlord takes is like a tax that tolerable though not pleasant.

Occasionally you get a sort of cagey and kind of crazy person who turns around and uses all the shenanigan of the sloppy landlord against them. The "grifters" - I've seen these types. Sure, they too will break the law but they get their mileage from the normally sloppy and abusive behavior of the small landlord.

The original poster I replied to on this thread believed that legal aid for tenants is what allowed these "grifters" operate. I dispute that and even more dispute the idea that not legal giving tenants legal aid would increase the housing supply. As I noted, the so-called grifters know the law and removing their free lawyers isn't going to change much. It's average tenants who need lawyers since they don't make a business of staying in apartment when a landlord is trying to legally or illegally evict them.

Further, a change making it easier for a landlord to illegally evict a tenant wouldn't improve the housing situation - the illegally evicted tenants would be looking for more housing and the opened-up units would be at a higher price.