Many property owners start investing in real estate because they don’t have enough saved for retirement or have little interest in holding down a “normal” job that comes with a boss and regular hours. When people in these situations become landlords, they transform an investment traditionally intended as a side hustle, a source of “passive income,” into their main hustle, “active income” that they believe should pay the bills and support them in their silver years. This overworks the asset and pressures landlords to make as much as they can, which would be far less problematic if the asset didn’t happen to be someone’s home and if raising the rent didn’t result in tenants becoming poorer.

— Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond