eviction prevention hardship

I have a unique hardship request to prevent eviction. Apparently the lease contract states that the tenant has a limited amount of time to notify the property owner of issues that need repair and if that amount of time expires the tenant is responsible for repairing the dwelling. Now the owner of the property is trying to evict the tenant/participant for neglecting to notify the owner of needed repairs, so the owner is saying pay to have the repairs done or get out. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? Is this a valid hardship request?

On the surface it is to prevent eviction, but it is also to repair a property that doesn't belong to the participant. 

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance! 

Assuming provisions of that sort are legal in the jurisdiction (and the participant - or the plan - might want to check with the local housing agency to make sure he doesn't have redress), then it clearly looks like it qualifies for a hardship.  He's a legal notice of possible eviction; to fix it, he needs to give them money (whether it's rent or repair money shouldn't make any difference).  

If this were one of my client plans, I would make the effort to check with one of my many lawyer clients to see if they know whether such a provision is legit in our jurisdiction.  It certainly is different; I've never heard of such a provision before, but that doesn't mean it isn't legit.