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Do these habitats exist?

There's a wide range of views on whether these habitats exist, especially so when it comes to potential surface microhabitats. Some astrobiologists consider that though these brines do exist, they are likely to be uninhabitable. Others treat it it is an open question whether there are temporary habitats that could be recolonized from below,, or inhabited continuously on or near the surface. Others say that it is likely that some parts of the Mars surface are already habitable for some lichens and cyanobacteria ("blue-green algae"), and that they can do this in the absence of liquid water, taking advantage of the night time humidity. Finally, a small minority of astrobiologists say that there is a strong possibility that present day life has already been detected on present day Mars with the Viking Labeled Release experiments. This would mean that much of the Martian surface is not only habitable but actually inhabited by some form of life. See # Views on the possibility of present day life on or near the surface.

If these habitats do exist they could be inhabited. Life could have evolved on Mars in the past, as there is evidence that it was far more habitable in the past. There is evidence of an early Mars ocean covering most of the northern hemisphere, and in December 2014, Curiosity scientists presented evidence that Gale Crater once contained a huge lake that was filled and evaporated many times.. This lake may have been habitable for life. For more on this see Life on Mars.

The habitats could also exist and be uninhabited, a possibility investigated by Charles Cockell in a series of papers. See Uninhabited habitats

Conferences on the topic of present day habitats for life on Mars

2013, February 4-6, conference on the Present Day Habitability of Mars was held in 2013 in UCLA..

2017, April 24-29 conference sub session on Modern Mars Habitability, Mesa, Arizona, organized by the NASA Ames Research Center, and LPL, University of Arizona, as part of the Astrobiology Science Conference 2017 .

2019, January 20 - February 1: Mars Extant Life: What’s Next?" to discuss the "numerous extant life hypotheses that have been advanced over the years and that have evolved in response to discoveries by on-going Mars missions."

Mars surface conditions simulation chambers

These chambers simulate the Martian day night cycle and other conditions of the Martian surface, with the goal to investigate the present day habitability of Mars. It's especially important to simulate the temperature and pressure variations because, though the amount of water vapour in the Mars atmosphere is low, at night the atmosphere becomes so cold that the relative humidity approaches 100%, which is of significance for any life that may be there. The chambers also have to simulate the Martian sunlight which has much less UV light filtered out than Earth sunlight. This is sterilizing over short timescales to any unprotected life directly exposed to the sunlight.

The Michigan Mars Environmental Chamber is run by Nilton Renno and his team:

Introduction: We have developed the Michigan Mars Environmental Chamber (MMEC) to simulate the entire range of Martian surface and shallow subsurface conditions with respect to temperature, pressure, relative humidity, solar radiation and soil wetness. Our goal is to simulate the Martian diurnal cycle for equatorial as well as polar Martian conditions and test the hypothesis that salts known to exist in the Martian regolith can deliquesce and form brine pockets or layers by freeze-thaw cycles. Motivation: Liquid water is one of the necessary ingredients for the development of life as we know it. ... It has been shown that liquid brines are ubiquitous in the Martian polar regions and microbial communities have been seen to survive under similar conditions in Antarctica's Dry Valleys.

The Mars Simulation Facility-Laboratory at the German Aerospace facilities (DLR) in Berlin is run by Jean-Pierre de Vera used for numerous astrobiological Mars habitability studies. as part of HOME (Habitability of Mars Environments)

"used for different astrobiological and physical experiments to simulate the key environmental conditions like pressure, temperature, radiation, gas composition, and primarily also the diurnally varying atmospheric humidity in a range from earth conditions to similar to those at the near-surface atmosphere of Martian mid- and low latitude" run by Jean-Pierre de Vera used for numerous astrobiological Mars habitability studies.