Good point on approaching people about whether they know anyone who would be interested in funding a deal even though the conversation might be directed to them; its a soft sell approach.I put together a 3-4 page opportunity document that describes the project in detail and I forward it to them. 

For a number of my apartments, a full time minimum wage job would provide sufficient income to qualify.But the tenants described in the book, Evicted, were not tenants that would qualify for my apartments based on either income or eviction history.  

My guess is that the typical offer pitch describes all the benefits to the tenant - rent credits, locking in the price today (all of which are tied to ultimately purchasing the property btw) - without pointing out that statistically it’s very unlikely they’ll ever see any of those benefits and therefore lose many thousands of dollars in option consideration.

This really isn’t my area of core competence but that’s what I would do if I were in the situation you’re describing.

I hope that makes sense how I am describing this. 

Do you own other real estate, like a primary residence (buying a house to live in isn't typically described as a "first deal," so no reason to assume that you don't own a home that you live in)?

We saw the same thing you are describing, homes being bid up around 30% over pre-fire prices in a “panic buying” scenario of fire victims seeking immediate housing.There is no real estate investment “opportunity” to be found amongst this type of tragedy, at least initially.  

From the info you described you basically need to drop the rent to the point where people are willing to deal with the other downsides associated with the property. 

The lease or rental agreement should also contain a clause that describes how to provide proper notice.What you can do will depend on the landlord-tenant laws for your jurisdiction.

Without knowing additional information, it is likely that the landlord could (and probably would) keep the security deposit of the non-paying tenant in the circumstance you're describing.