Or landlords to properly maintain their properties.
Just sniping here, but it's quite possible to fix your own plumbing nowadays, assuming that it's specific to the apartment, if the landlord refuses to. The internet makes it particularly easy to figure out how to do it, and even do it right (not that hard... standard plumbing fixes don't require a lot of education).
I've actually fixed quite a lot of problems myself in apartments I've lived in, without even mentioning them to the landlord (plumbing, electric, missing/decaying storm windows that let in a wicked draft [not a proper fix in the last case, but enough to stop the draft], etc.).
But yeah... gonna take a step back from relating that to race. Has nothing to do with skin color. The standard meme is that poor people are helpless to fix such things without landlord assistance... but they're not. Is it their responsibility? Not really, but sometimes it's just easier, and fairly cheap as well if you're doing it yourself. Relying on the landlord tends to take a bit longer and who knows if they'll ever get to it. And don't get me wrong. I'm also aware that doing unlicensed plumbing can get you into legal trouble in some jurisdictions (usually not for simple fixes that you didn't charge anybody for, though).
And yes, there are indeed some problems that you literally can't fix yourself this way. I'm aware of that. And even I wouldn't buy my landlord a new water heater, for instance. A flapper valve for the toilet or a new faucet for the kitchen sink? Not even worth mentioning to the landlord. It'd be even sillier to rely on the "professionals" to clean out a simple p-trap that is clogged (ridiculously easy and costs nothing -- unless you ask a plumber to do it or are stupid enough to actually buy drain cleaner instead of just taking it apart... the clog isn't always in the trap, but it usually is).
And no. I'm not a plumber or even a "handyman." I've done just enough of it myself to know that most things don't actually require a professional, and I acquired most of that knowledge while renting and supposedly able to rely on a landlord to do them. To be perfectly blunt, the appeal of just doing it myself was partially about learning how to. To me, that's more valuable than what little I spent on whatever the repair was (usually next to nothing, at worst 50 bucks or so). Self reliance is a good thing, and doesn't necessarily cost much (usually makes things cheaper).
That said, not everybody grew up with parents who fully remodeled three different houses while they were growing up (not that I did much of it) and literally built a fourth one (mostly) by themselves after I moved out... so... I had a bit of a head start and people to consult. Not everybody has that, but most of what I'm talking about is pathetically easy once you know how.