I get what you're saying, but surely there ought to be some limit on how unsafe a rental property can be, right? For one thing, at some point it actually won't

I get what you're saying, but surely there ought to be some limit on how unsafe a rental property can be, right? For one thing, at some point it actually won't even be true that "it's better than sleeping on the street." When the cheap electrical wiring causes a fire that burns down the apartment building and kills a few dozen people, that probably wasn't better than if the victims had slept on the street that particular night. So if your landlord is selling you a nightly probability that you'll be safer than if you had slept on the street, this "better than the street" sound bite sounds a little less appealing. Not to mention that the rentees probably aren't properly informed of these probabilities. Secondly, I think it's a false dichotomy in practice. I find it very hard to believe that basic safety codes alone cause the difference between SRO-style buildings and "luxury" or even "middle-class" apartments. What percentage of that $800k was spent on the GFCI outlets in the kitchen?