not all landlords are rich and/or have rent as their entire income in normal times. my friend is a "landlord", in the sense that she rents out the spare room in her house to help pay the mortgage. now her entire industry is shut down and her tenant isn't getting paid either. no matter how responsibly they manage their finances, most people can't handle suddenly having multiple sources of cashflow go to zero.

I think that fundamentally what I'm trying to criticize, is the original proposal shifted all the burden from one class of people to another class. And then assumed that the problem just goes away, without having to do anything expensive like the government providing emergency funding. But its not that simple - its not like debt holders can neccesarily just take the hit. They have things they need money for. They have people they employ who need to get paid. Sure, there is a certain amount of a hit that can be taken - but ultimately money has to come from somewhere or your just shifting which class of people are totally screwed by this, which doesnt solve anything.

To be clear, i'm a hypothetical landlord. Not actually a landlord.

> You’d buy groceries with your emergency fund. As a self employed person it is your responsibility to do this for yourself.

Its everyone's responsibility to have an emergency fund. Why is the answer that the landlord should rely on his/her fund instead of the tennant relying on their fund to pay rent?