There’s been help offered for homeowners, help for the unemployed, help for small businesses — hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, supports and tax breaks, with much more to come as Ottawa tackles the current economic crisis.

But there are many people who are still at risk of quickly falling through the cracks that have opened in Canada’s economy during the COVID-19 pandemic: tenants, especially those with low incomes.

For them, the help is not coming fast enough.

Almost half of Canada’s tenants — 46 per cent — don’t have enough money to pay the next month’s rent unless they keep working at full tilt, according to an analysis by economist Ricardo Tranjan of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

That means almost half the 3.4 million working families living in rental housing are in a tight spot already; if those families’ wage earners are already out of work or lose their jobs in the next few weeks, they’re in trouble. A quarter of those 3.4 million families have just a week’s worth of savings.

“Job loss, combined with even small delays in applying for programs or waiting the one-week period for Employment Insurance, immediately puts these families at risk of not making rent at the end of March, much less April,” Tranjan wrote.

The $82-billion package Ottawa rolled out last week will certainly help some of them. On top of existing Employment Insurance, the government is creating an emergency benefit for those who don’t qualify for EI.

But the wait for EI is too long for some, and the money is still weeks away for those who will get the new benefit.

The risk is especially high for young people, who tend to have precarious work arrangements and don’t have much income or savings to begin with, says economist Armine Yalnizyan.

The federal government, with a hand from the provinces, needs to find ways to help them with the rent.

It can do so right away.

The first step would be easy: temporarily ban evictions. Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and British Columbia have already done it, and the rest of the provinces and territories could, too.

That would reflect what’s already happening in affordable housing, says Evan Siddall, the head of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. His agency is in close contact with affordable housing managers and co-operatives to make sure they give renters lots of flexibility to pay later if they’re in trouble. “Nobody’s going to get evicted as far as I’m concerned.”

Legal eviction is difficult even in normal times, Siddall noted. Not only would it be immoral in the current circumstances, he added, but it’s next to impossible to even attempt right now.

But banning evictions would be just a start. Rent will eventually need to be paid. After all, landlords need to stay afloat, too.

CMHC has already put a bundle of measures in place for them. If homeowners can’t make their monthly mortgage payments now, they can add that amount to their debt and pay it starting in six months. Commercial banks have also committed to giving their clients extra flexibility on their mortgages and loans.

Siddall also points to a major increase in funding for shelters for homeless people announced in last week’s $82-billion package.

But it’s the people in between — the low-income renters who aren’t homeless and aren’t homeowners — who could use more support, and quickly. Tranjan says Ottawa could allow provinces to take some of the federal money they received to build affordable housing and use it for rent support instead.

Yalnizyan goes further. “Don’t collect rent from people who can’t pay it,” she said. “Press pause on payments.”

She also notes that dramatically increasing the federal GST credits to low-income families would get money flowing right away.

Siddall hints heavily that the federal government is well aware of the problem and is poised to move decisively to solve it.

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But he has a stark warning for renters and homeowners who aren’t actually in trouble right now: don’t be like the hoarders who clear out the grocery-store shelves and leave others who are needy in the lurch.

“Pay your rent if you can,” he said. Yes, everyone is panicking right now about job stability and savings in the face of the pandemic. But if you’re able to pay your mortgage or rent, the help should be going to someone else.

“It’s really important for people who can pay their bills to pay their bills.”