I am in the middle of a 'compassionate landlording' situation myself.
I own a commercial building that happens to include 2 low apartments (the wacky nature of commercial property valuation meant I got the whole building, with 44 other units, for the same price I could have bought a duplex).
The 'downstairs' apartment is not a nice place. Small rooms, weird layout, next to the electrical room (which means a low hum). But it works for some people. I pay the utilities (for now) and just accept that in the short to mid-term it won't be a great apartment.
The current tenant is a nice guy. He works insanely hard - 2 full time, low wage jobs plus some other stuff. He is a (legal) immigrant, his English isn't great. He is literally always at work, both of his jobs are within about 200 feet of the apartment. He sends all his money either to his kids in the nearby city, or back to the Philippines to support his extended family there. His 19 year old son also lives with him, and works for a local concrete company, and he also sends most of his money elsewhere.
All well and good. I haven't raised the rent since I took possession (1.5 years ago), I've done a few minor upgrades in their apartment (while totally renovating the rest of the building). There is close to a 0% vacancy rate in our community, we need people who work as hard as he does to be here.
Currently, rent increases are capped at the rate of inflation in our province. So the max I can increase it is 2.2%, and if I don't do it this year I can't add it next year. My solution is to wait until December of each year - I don't want his $15, but I also don't want to be deep in a well and unable to get FMV when he does move out. There is some talk of banning increases between tenants, which I hope never happens.
My problem is that he occasionally is short on rent. Never by a lot, but it happens with some regularity. And it is very hard for him to catch up, he has no spare cash at all. So he gets ever deeper into owing me a bit more money every couple of months. We've had a few go arounds with him paying me extra to catch up, then slowly falling behind again.
I have a few options.
1. Eviction. I can kick him out, renovate the apartment to being a 'higher low end apartment' and rent it for probably about $300 more than I am currently getting. I'm pretty sure that makes him homeless or very close to it, and I have a lot of respect for the fact he works as hard as he does. He is literally always at work, every day - 7 am to 3 at one job, then he walks over to the pub and works there until midnight or later. Every day. If he was hanging around smoking joints and playing video games I'd have booted him a year ago.
2. Forgiveness. I am required to do a bit of work in his place soon for overall building safety reasons, which will be disruptive for him for a week or so. I am considering forgiving his overdue rent in exchange for the disruption, but then making it really clear that further late rent will result in immediate eviction (within the law, of course).