I don't think the mom and pops are really the problem (in fact, this is I think one of the few viable ways for regular people to actually get ahead) but all of the things surrounding housing. One can get place renting for $2k, but can't get approved for that mortgage amount even with tons of history showing it's paid. Corporations owning massive amounts of property are also a much bigger problem. Appealing to an individual (mom and pop) is generally a lot easier than to try to appeal to a corp in which you're just Lessee #4949857 who's spreadsheet tells them to squeeze you for more money because.

Past that, I'd also argue renters need much more support when it comes to their rights because quite a lot of the things that people are posting here as anecdotes to why their landlords are shitty are already illegal, it's just extremely difficult to get anything done about it. I'd suggest also that there was some regulatory body (if one doesn't exist already) responsible for certifying housing/landlords because then at least shit would get fixed once a year.

My only half-decent experience renting was a blue-collar mom and pop who leveraged their own home to buy a second home to rent, that they rented significantly under market value. If anything, we should be trying to setup more systems that allow this outcome (they fucked me on the deposit though, but that's the part about renter's rights.)