Talk to your landlord

Re: Rent strikes loom as coronavirus kills jobs

With the current financial and medical emergency situation caused by COVID-19, it makes sense for governments to block evictions from residential properties for nonpayment of rent. This will protect tenants caught in dire financial straits from getting bounced from their homes. However, this does not make it the right of tenants to stop paying if they can pay some or all. The group calling itself Keep Your Rent is advocating exactly that. Their “rent strike” seems to be aimed at the faceless large corporations so it can “stick it to the man.” If they stop to think for a minute they will realize that many, many rental properties are owned by small mom and pop operations that rely on their rental income as part of their living.

Keep Your Rent is proposing the exact equivalent to looting a store just because the owner has no legal recourse to stop them. I encourage renters to ignore these egocentric anarchists and talk to their landlords to work out a way to keep everyone afloat in this difficult time.

Kevin Reinelt,

Port Coquitlam, B.C.

I have a fellow renting a room from me who is a bicycle food courier. I have told him I do not want him risking his life to pay rent. After I told him that, I realized having him go out is also putting my life at risk.

All levels of government musty decree a rent freeze. This must be taken out of the hands of landlords.

Stories of landlords demanding their rent be paid once their tenants receive money meant to help people feed themselves, show they have neither empathy nor understanding. Rents must not only be frozen but also be forgiven. That goes for everything, otherwise most of us will come out of this with an impossible burden of debt. Not one of should be putting themselves first.

Whatever costs the media incur to keep us informed must also be forgiven, otherwise we will be a nation in darkness.

Reg Hartt, Toronto