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An abandoned Single room hotel in San Francisco.

The expression "single room occupancy" or, more commonly "SRO", may refer to a building that houses people in single rooms, or to the single room dwelling type itself.^{citation needed} Tenants of buildings with multiple SROs often share bathrooms and/or kitchens, while SROs in buildings with mixed dwelling types may include kitchenettes or half-baths.

The term originated in New York City, probably in the 1930s (the Oxford English Dictionary provides an earliest citation of 1941), but the institutions date back at least fifty years before the nickname was applied to them. SROs exist in many American cities, and are most common in larger cities. The terms single room occupancy and SRO are not used in British English. Related British terms include house in multiple occupation, hostel, bedsit or boarding house.^{citation needed}

In many cases, the buildings themselves were formerly hotels in or near a city's central business district. Others are former single family homes.^{citation needed} Many of these buildings were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and reflect a high order of architectural style and craftsmanship.^{citation needed} In the United States, the decades from the 1920s onward saw the movement of the upper classes, who lived in these homes and occupied the hotels, to the suburbs. A process often referred to as "filtering" resulted in the occupancy of these buildings and districts by the lower socioeconomic classes.^{citation needed}

Oakland's Malonga Casquelord Arts Center on Alice Street

In some cases SRO units are found in publicly owned academic and arts buildings such as the artist apartments in the Malonga Casquelord Arts Center in Oakland, California.

SROs are a viable housing option for some students, childless singles, seasonal or other traveling workers, empty nester widows/widowers, or others who do not desire or require large dwellings or private domestic appliances such as their own washer/dryer/dishwasher. The smaller size and limited amenities in SROs generally makes them a more affordable housing option, especially in gentrifying neighborhoods or urban areas with high land values.

The rents of many disadvantaged tenants may be paid by state and federal programs, eliminating much of the unease that might otherwise have prevented landlords from accepting such tenants.

Depending on the sensibilities of the landlords and the quality of the properties, SROs can range from Dickensian squalor to something like an extended-stay hotel. Some have been run in dormitory fashion. Others have been "cage" hotels, in which a large room is split into many smaller ones with corrugated steel or sheetrock dividers, which do not reach the height of the original ceiling. To prevent tenants from climbing over the walls into each others' spaces, the tops of the rooms are covered in chicken wire, making the rooms look something like cages.^{citations needed}

A refurbished Single room hotel at 55 Mason Street, in San Francisco.

As the value of urban land has increased, it has become economical to renovate these properties and make them available once again to higher bidders. This has displaced the people who once lived in them, and is one of the reasons for the visible increase in the population of homeless in the streets of American cities since the early 1980s.^{citations needed}

Recognizing that there is significant incentive for landlords to forcibly evict SRO tenants in gentrifying neighborhoods, the city of New York applies strict rules to the conversion of SROs to other use. In particular, if tenants testify that they have been harassed in any way, conversion can be delayed by three years. Landlords who intend to convert SROs usually try to convince their tenants to sign releases, which may require finding them new places to live and/or paying them.^{citations needed}

San Francisco similarly passed an SRO Hotel Conversion Ordinance in 1980, which restricts the conversion of SRO hotels to tourist use. SROs are prominent in the Tenderloin, Mission District and Chinatown communities. In 2001, San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly sponsored legislation making it illegal for SRO landlords to charge "visitor fees" -- a practice long run in order for hotel managers to get a "cut" on drug-dealing or prostitution activities in the building. After a rash of fires destroyed many SRO's in San Francisco and left nearly one thousand tenants homeless, a new program to reduce fire risk in SRO Hotels was initiated (http://www.sfgov.org/site/sffd_page.asp?id=67297).

See also

• Apartment hotel
• Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada

Further reading

• Down And Out: The Life And Death Of Minneapolis's Skid Row by Joseph Hart And Edwin C. Hirschoff
• Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States by Paul Groth
• Merrifield, Andy. Dialectical Urbanism: Social Struggles in the Capitalist City. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002. ISBN 1583670602. Chapter Six describes SROs in New York City.

External links

• Single Room Occupancy Hotels in Chicago
• Central City SRO Collaborative -- a non-profit in San Francisco that organizes and assists SRO tenants