I agree. Eviction is sometimes the necessary remedy.

But I think tenants should have immediate and very real legal recourses for landlords who don't maintain properties to 100% habitable conditions, maintaining the entire property at code.

Tenants should not be forced to bear the risk of a landlords negligence. Ever. For even a moment. Not with shit railings. Not with crumbling steps. Not with loose floorboards. Not with bad plumbing, faulty wiring or a non-functioning boiler.

If I'm being told to understand that sometimes tenants are so horrible they need to be evicted?

Then you can understand that the bar for providing habitable habitation has fallen too low and landlords get away with massive, horrific abuses.

If you want to respect this relationship? Respect it. Because "it's a marketplace" doesn't fly in the modern era of morality when we're talking about basic roof-over-head dynamics in a grossly expensive market that's far outpacing wage growth. Not saying you don't. Maybe you're your town's one good landlord.

From my experiences renting in my youth, over 20 years ago, if landlord wasn't present on the property too that was an immediate massive increase in odds of "I don't fucking care." I cannot imagine its improved and the anecdotal proof I could offer from stories told doesn't support that it has either.