One might be able to find a way to inquire about tenants' financial stability. Tough policies, without intent to follow-through seems a little like bullying/extortion.
Finding a way to work with tenants seems like an opportunity for a win-win. Deferring partial rent payments should see some uptake among those who will find work when the country finds a way to right the ship.
If you have good tenants whom you want to keep, keeping them may take work and discounts. I have colleagues who are working/schooling from home who have opted not to renew their expensive urban leases for the coming year. I suspect they would have renewed at a temporarily-discounted rate.
I do not have the time to vet the financial situation of every tenant, even if I could assume they provided honest data. Moreover, most are working from home and still able to pay full rent - so the danger is having word spread that I'm giving out discounts.
For me, the more efficient process is actually to pressure non-payers to leave and just accept lower rents on incoming tenants.
I'm not saying that's the best ethical way to handle it, but it is the most cost and time efficient method - given my limited resources.
Is it impossible for the owner to reach out to tenants? Ask them how they are doing and what their payment prospects are? If true stress is indicated (it will be obvious which are really in dire straights), work with those tenants on plans to help them land as softly as possible? Rather than just terrorize them into crawling away, more injured by their association with you than they had to be.
As written, the comment is completely unsupportable.
One of the tenants found out, and spread the word to all the other tenants - and encouraged all of them to stop paying rent. A little over half of them stopped paying an elderly man rent while he was in the hospital having chemo.
That meant that he couldn't pay the mortgage on the building and was forced to sell it.
That is what it's like being a landlord. You should try it and your opinion on "evil capitalists" will quickly change from your current twelve year old's perspective.