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Wednesday is the first of the month. How many tenants won’t be able to pay it to The Man?

In a period of COVID-choked incomes, it is no small question: there are more than 130,000 rented dwellings in the city of Ottawa alone —landlords big and small, tenants stable or suddenly broke.

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Some landlords are being generous, like the south-end Wingale Housing Co-op, which has given its 50 tenants two months of rent relief, or the Parc Beausoleil, in Lowertown, which cancelled April’s payment for its 56 members.

For bigger landlords, flexibility is the guiding principle.

The Eastern Ontario Landlord Organization, which has 40,000 rental homes under its umbrella, is urging both tenants and landlords to accommodate each other, according to personal circumstances.

Tenants with no interruption in income (public servants, pensioners, for instance) should pay the rent, say the EOLO, while those with a sudden loss need to catch some monetary relief from the landlord, at least for April.