'Depressing and genuinely soul crushing': The fallout from the coronavirus lockdown

As COVID-19 forces harsher restrictions to be put in place, thousands of businesses have had to close and tens of thousands of employees have found themselves without work.

Dominic Causley-Todd has been working in a Surry Hills bar for more than a year, but when the coronavirus pandemic reached Sydney, life was thrown upside-down.

"This was going to be my year, I'd just been promoted, I was working most days of the week."

"I was really happy and proud of what I was doing."

Things took a turn extremely quickly, and within the space of a week, Dominic found himself unemployed.

"Before it really kicked off they sent a message out to all the causals and said it was probably going to affect your hours … but I wasn't really worried at that point."

"Suddenly in that week I was working and no one went, in terms of businesses the brakes were coming on hard.

"In the space of a week I went from working 40 hours a week to five and then before I could apply for Centrelink we go the announcement about the closures and I was completely unemployed."

For Dominic, the job was more than a side-job or a way to make some money, it was an entire life and career and losing it has been heartbreaking.

"It's been a bit depressing and genuinely soul crushing. I base a lot of my identity around my job and I'm really proud of what I do."

"A lot of it is just the uncertainty – I don't know how long this will last, I don't know if I'll have a job on the other side of it, I don't know what's going happen tomorrow let alone in three months time."

Dominic described waiting for hours at Centrelink on two occasions and watching the streams of people waiting to get help.

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"There was just one person after another, wall-to-wall lines … it was really depressing."

Dominic is hopeful the crisis will show people the importance of hospitality workers and other industries that have been undervalued in the past such as those in the arts and retail workers.

"We've all been victims of wage theft, we've been underpaid, overworked and underappreciated so we get the money we need? Will they care enough to invest in it to get this back off the ground when this is over?"

Can I be evicted if I don't pay my rent due to coronavirus?

Under current legislation, tenants can be evicted if they fail to pay rent.

Leo Patterson Ross, from the NSW Tenants Union, said landlords are in fact able to evict people for no grounds whatsoever and this is causing major concern.

"A landlord can go to a court or tribunal and say 'I don't have to give reason why I want this tenant out I just want them out' and in NSW the tribunal cannot refuse," Mr Ross told Nine.com.au.

"That's a big worry for us that some landlords will just switch to this no grounds provision."

Mr Ross said those living in less formal living arrangements, particularly international students who may be staying in share houses, there is little protection.

"The second concern is that there are hundreds of thousands of renters across the country who aren't under formal residency tenant agreements and they don't go through the court or tribunal so landlords can just evict them so that's a big worry."

He also said it was possible the dire circumstances could lead to illegal behavior.

"We are also quite worried that landlords will just take matters into their own hands and ignore the process and that's highly illegal," he said.

"This happens particularly when people think that the police won't be paying much attention because they've got other crises to attend to they think they can just get away with it and that's why we need government being very clear and very comprehensive in their legislative solutions.

Mr Ross said the current predicament facing the housing sector has emphasised the lack of protection renters face day-to-day.

"These kinds of crises don't create new problems they show what's already broken."

"We don't have the strong systems that would help people get through these things because for many years now we've relied on the market to just sort it out themselves … and it's very clear the market is not capable of doing that."

Landlords encouraged to be flexible

Despite there being no formal protections, the Real Estate Agent's Association has released a statement encouraging landlords to be flexible and Mr Ross said this is in everyone's interest.

"If you talk to your landlord and reduce your rent down to $200 of $150 a week so it's an affordable job-seeker payment, that's nearly $1000 in a month they might not have had otherwise," he said.

"It would be pretty indefensible for a person to get a waiver on their mortgage and not pass that support on to their tenants."

In his press conference this morning Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews said governments were looking at ways to protect tenants while also providing relief for people paying mortgages.

"I don't want to see people turfed out of their homes," he said.