For renovation, it's not just stainless steel appliances, it's little things over time. In 1 or 2 years it's not really noticeable but over 5-10 years it starts to take a toll. Even the building I used to live in used a large tarp on the roof rather than fixing some leaks that would drip through the ceiling of my apartment and cause bubbles in the drywall when we had heavy rain.

In the mission, I would prefer if a subsidy was just given to the poor via tax dollars. Say it's a $200 per household subsidy. Maybe it makes sense for that family to pay it to the landlord, but maybe it makes sense to find a cheaper apartment and spend it on a TV. If it turns out that the TV was the chosen decision, that helps drive down the price of rent b/c maybe the landlord will have a slightly harder time raising rent prices. If, on the other hand, the tenant chooses to allocate the money to housing, it will help drive up housing prices. The upside of driving up housing prices is that it now becomes more worthwhile for someone to convert their house into apartments, which in turn increases supply and would tend to help keep prices affordable.