A side effect of tenent friendly laws is that owners get more and more picky about who they rent to in the first place. It's cheaper to have a place empty for a

A side effect of tenent friendly laws is that owners get more and more picky about who they rent to in the first place. It's cheaper to have a place empty for a few months than to take a risk on a potentially bad tenant. Ultimately this is creating a class of people who can't rent. Their track record is poor - or if not them specifically they are in a group with a poor track record. Not surprisingly this mostly affects the poorest and most vulnerable - those with the least job security - those with health/work issues and so on. This overlaps with the group least likely to actually be able to purchase a home to begin with. This issue will not be solved with free-market economics. Either one accepts the need for some layer of free social housing, or one accepts that a decent chunk of society will be homeless.