Public service can handle large scale renting situations, ensure that the lodgings are kept up to standard, and limit the ever increasing price of rent by not being profit-driven. Individual landlords that are out there making a profit on something that only gain value and usually requires minimal upkeep (that some don’t even do) are parasites, plain and simple.
But the concept of public services acting for the well being of others is not well understood in some countries, I guess.