On Monday, the Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit (CERB) was made available. Over the next week tens of thousands of Torontonians will apply for relief to offset massive job loss.

Landlords throughout the city awaited Monday with even more anticipation than the tenants themselves. On the day that the CERB was made available, tenants across the city were contacted by their landlords with renewed demands for immediate payment of rent or to commit to potentially catastrophic repayment agreements. The implication is clear: the CERB is their money.

Even for the tenants who qualify, the CERB doesn’t add up to much if rent is due. We’ve all heard the “$2,000 per month for all Canadians in need” figure. But this $2,000 per month is taxable income. The taxable portion, let’s say 20 per cent or $400 every month, is a debt to the government. To view it as anything other than a debt is dangerous.

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In Toronto, the average rent for a one bedroom sits at about $1,500, whereas a bachelor costs around $1,200 a month. But the newer the lease the higher the rent. Leases on one bedrooms signed in 2020 had an average rent of $2,300. Let’s look at the best case scenario for a Toronto tenant. With $1,600 after tax from the CERB and rent of somewhere between $1,200 and $1,500, tenants are left with between $100 and $400 to survive on for a month.

If 75 per cent to 95 per cent of the CERB is expected to go to landlords, then who is this relief actually for and what emergency is being addressed? Are unemployed tenants really expected to survive a global pandemic on as little as $25 a week while landlords are paid in full? Tenants will not have enough to cover rent, food and other supplies for April. Let alone be able to pay May rent as well. And the tenants with no income, who can’t get the CERB, are left to what? Eventual eviction or crippling debt.

As long as rent remains on the table for the more than 700,000 tenant households in Toronto, it is a clear and present danger to the health and safety of everyone. The wilful ignorance of simple math on the part of politicians, bankers and landlords is unacceptable.

Over a 34-week period, an unemployed worker that is eligible for the CERB is entitled to a maximum of 16 weeks’ worth of benefits. This is $8,000 or $6,400 after tax. The government has given no indication that workers who remain unemployed for more than 16 weeks will receive EI or some other benefit.

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If those who receive the full CERB have to rely on this money to survive through the summer and fall, we will see many forced to work in unsafe conditions to make ends meet or to rely on increasing levels of debt. These options would exacerbate or prolong either a public health crisis, an economic crisis — or both.

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Without rent forgiveness for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis, the only relief that has been provided is to the bottom line of landlords. The rest of us will be left to deal with the personal and social disaster created when a global pandemic and Toronto’s housing crisis collide.

This housing crisis certainly did not begin with COVID-19 but in the last few weeks, those who are directly threatened by it have grown substantially. For many of us, increases in rents and housing prices have outpaced that of wages and salaries by double. Rent may be at the bottom of this pyramid but it cannot be expected to prop it up.

The broader implication of rent forgiveness is that some mortgage holders could potentially experience financial difficulties. If that is the case, pressure should be applied upward on to financial institutions and lenders. Not downward on to tenants.

It is unreasonable to expect tenants with no real assets and very little resources to sacrifice what little we have left in order to guarantee the revenue streams of financial institutions.