This is extremely true. I know a family who recently got out of a terrible situation where their landlord
- Regularly stole food from their kitchen
- Turned off their hot water for several weeks
- Verbally harassed their elementary school aged daughter
All of these things are illegal but in the city where they lived there isn't much practical recourse for a poor family. The only option the city lists on their website is to hire a lawyer and take the landlord to court. There's supposed to be a fine for every day the hot water is off, but guess who you can call to enforce that? Nobody. This is true of many laws that supposedly protect ordinary people (e.g. labor laws). Once you go to avail yourself of the protection you find there's actually no functioning mechanism and often that's by design.
- Regularly stole food from their kitchen
- Turned off their hot water for several weeks
- Verbally harassed their elementary school aged daughter
All of these things are illegal but in the city where they lived there isn't much practical recourse for a poor family. The only option the city lists on their website is to hire a lawyer and take the landlord to court. There's supposed to be a fine for every day the hot water is off, but guess who you can call to enforce that? Nobody. This is true of many laws that supposedly protect ordinary people (e.g. labor laws). Once you go to avail yourself of the protection you find there's actually no functioning mechanism and often that's by design.