Single Room Occupancy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A single room occupancy (more commonly SRO, sometimes called a single resident occupancy) is a multiple-tenant building that houses one or two people in individual rooms (sometimes two rooms, or two rooms with a bathroom or half bathroom), or to the single room dwelling itself. SRO tenants typically share bathrooms and/or kitchens, while some SRO rooms may include kitchenettes, bathrooms, or half-baths. Although many are former hotel

Hotel

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

s, SROs are primarily rented as a permanent residence

Home

A home is a place of residence or refuge. When it refers to a building, it is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and store personal property. Most modern-day households contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food. Animals have their own homes as well, either...

History

The term originated in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, probably in the 1930s (the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

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

British English

British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...

. Related British terms include house in multiple occupation

House in multiple occupation

Houses in Multiple Occupation , also known as Houses of Multiple Occupancy, is a British English term which refers to residential property where ‘common areas’ exist and are shared by more than one household. Common areas may be as significant as bathrooms and kitchenettes, but may also be just...

, hostel

Hostel

Hostels provide budget oriented, sociable accommodation where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed, in a dormitory and share a bathroom, lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex, although private rooms may also be available...

, bedsit

Bedsit

A bedsit, also known as a bed-sitting room, is a form of rented accommodation common in Great Britain and Ireland consisting of a single room and shared bathroom; they are part of a legal category of dwellings referred to as Houses in multiple occupation....

or boarding house

Boarding house

A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...

.

In many cases, the buildings themselves were formerly hotels in or near a city's central business district

Central business district

A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...

. Others are former single family homes. Many of these buildings were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and reflect a high order of architectural style and craftsmanship.

Uses

SROs are a viable housing option for poor people

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

, students, single tenants, seasonal or other traveling workers, empty nester widows/widowers, or others who do not desire or require large dwellings or private domestic appliances. The smaller size and limited amenities in SROs generally makes them a more affordable housing option, especially in gentrifying

Gentrification

Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...

neighborhoods or urban areas with high land values.

The rents of many disadvantaged tenants may be paid in full or in part by charitable, state and federal programs, giving incentive to landlords to accept such tenants. Some SRO buildings are renovated with the benefit of a tax abatement, with the condition that the rooms are rented to tenants with low incomes, and sometimes specific low income groups, such as homeless people

Homelessness

Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...

, people with mental illness

Mental illness

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...

, people with AIDS, and so on.

Conditions

Depending on the sensibilities of the landlords and the quality of the properties, SRO conditions can range from squalor to something like an extended-stay hotel. Some have been run in dormitory

Dormitory

A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...

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.

SROs today

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 would play a role in the displacement of people who once lived in them, and could be one reason for the visible increase in the population of homeless people in the streets of American cities since the early 1980s.

Recognizing that there is significant incentive for landlords to forcibly evict SRO tenants in gentrifying

Gentrification

neighborhoods, some cities regulate the conversion of SROs to other use. In particular, if tenants testify that they have been harassed in any way, conversion can be delayed. In San Francisco, the city may take over particularly squalid

Aranda Residence

The Aranda Residence is a 6 story SRO hotel located at 64 Turk Street in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California. Built in 1911 by the architectural firm of George Streshly and Company, it was called Hotel Schwartz, Hotel Tynan, Aranda Hotel, and finally, Aranda Residence, after the...

SROs, and renovate them for the disadvantaged. Landlords who intend to convert SROs may try to convince their tenants to sign releases, which may require relocation by the landlord and/or compensating the tenant.

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

Chinatown

A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...

communities. In 2001, San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly

Chris Daly

Chris Daly is a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He represented District 6, on which he served from 2000 to 2010...

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.

External links

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

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Uses

Conditions

SROs today

See also

Further reading

External links