3 ms·

SROs are usually small rooms, like 150 sq ft, with not many common areas besides a hallway, laundry room, bathroom, and a single shared kitchen. The big differ

SROs are usually small rooms, like 150 sq ft, with not many common areas besides a hallway, laundry room, bathroom, and a single shared kitchen. The big difference between SROs and roommates is that your lease is individual, you are sharing amenities with maybe 8-20 people instead of like 3, and you don’t necessarily have things like a shared living room. They’re cheaper than a roommate situation given the drawbacks. Making them illegal is probably a way to try to keep poor people out of the community. Because they’re single occupancy with shared facilities they skew towards poorer, middle aged single men at least in SF, and are kind of a stepping stone for people getting out of homelessness. I think the concept is great but in practice they seem to often end up slummy

smeej 4y ago
Hmm. The example given in the article is of a married couple who owned a house and had another person renting one room in their house. That's what made me me think it sounds like they took on a roommate, not that they did something that would run against the spirit of a single-family dwelling zone. I have friends now who are engaged and recently bought a house, and are renting out the other bedrooms to two of the (adult) younger siblings of one of the partners, which sounds similar too. I can see the difference between "roommates" and "boarding houses," but the article's example sounded like something that should be fine in neighborhoods.