Many did not pay rent in B.C. on April 1

April 8, 2020

British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec have all banned rental evictions for the next three to four months due to COVID-19 job losses. In B.C. many have taken this as a signal not to pay rent.
“There is a movement right now in the City of Vancouver – on Facebook and Twitter and social media – where there’s this call of unity to band together and not pay rent,” said Goodman Commercial Inc. principal Mark Goodman, a specialist in the multi-family rental market.
Goodman Commercial recently surveyed a dozen multi-family property owners of varying sizes, from small family-owned operations to large institutional investors. The firm’s data found that between 1 per cent and 50 per cent of the tenants of these property owners did not pay their rent April 1.
One medium-sized landlord surveyed by the firm saw 45 per cent of its tenants not pay rent. 
The B.C. government has promised that no tenant in B.C. would face eviction during the COVID-19 crisis—with the eviction freeze, so far, running for three months.
The province has clarified that tenants are still required to pay their rent.
On March 24, the province approved a $500 renters’ supplement and other measures to support residents facing financial challenges, but the money is not expected to start flowing until mid-April. The supplement is paid directly to landlords.
Manitoba has banned most rental evictions for four months. Quebec was the first to stop rental evictions during the pandemic. Neither Manitoba nor Quebec are offering financial aid to landlords and there are no reports so far that tenants in these provinces are not paying rent.