4 ms·

Here in Chicago there are still some SROs. Chicago has middling tenants rights: not as strong as New York or SF but stronger than most of the country. If tenant

by jordanb 11mo ago

Here in Chicago there are still some SROs. Chicago has middling tenants rights: not as strong as New York or SF but stronger than most of the country. If tenants rights ended SROs you'd expect them to not exist in a place like Chicago. I moved to logan square before gentrification. There were two SRO buildings that I knew of. Both were redeveloped by the time I moved out. SROs often serve as half-way houses for people getting out of prison so there's a lot of community opposition. All the SROs that are left in Chicago have been around a long time, there aren't new ones being built and the old ones slowly go away when the area gentrifies.

HDThoreaun 11mo ago
There are still a decent number of sros in uptown. We’ll see how long that lasts with the new towers and zoning probably making them prime redevelopment targets.
andrewla 11mo ago
SROs still exist even in NYC; I used to live not far from one in Brooklyn that got bought and redeveloped. At one point in NYC there was a push for what they called "student living" or something, which was basically an SRO -- shared kitchens and bathrooms, etc., but all the ones I was aware of were made into city-run homeless shelters in the 2010s.
Matticus_Rex 11mo ago
Tenant rights didn't end SROs, but they made them much more expensive to operate in cities that make evictions difficult. Most cities were already discouraging them with zoning and building codes, and tenant rights expansions in some of the most expensive cities just doubled down. Where they still exist in significant quantity, it's usually because of subsidies, carve-outs that exempt them from some code or regulatory requirements, or both. NYC still has the most in the country, and might stop losing the ones they have so quickly thanks to some 2023 carve-outs and subsidies. But as a percentage of the housing stock (which is already too low!) they've declined from ~10% in the 1950s to >1% now. But it's very, very rare anywhere for new SROs to be built, and especially in the cities that could benefit most from them. Chicago passed an ordinance in 2014 to preserve the SROs they had, with subsidized loans and tax credits to operators, but between 2015 and 2020 they still lost 37% of their remaining SRO buildings (no more recent data seems easily available).
- jordanb 11mo ago
  It seems like half this discussion thread is trying to pin the problem on "tenants rights" while the other half is saying "SROs are bad because they house undesirables." If it were tenants rights, you'd expect SROs to go away in the parts of the country with the strongest tenants rights, subsidies or no. Instead, SROs disappearing seems mostly correlated with gentrification and nimbys. As an aside I've known several smallish residential landlords (20-50 units) and they are, in general, strongly biased towards higher-income tenants and totally unequipped to manage an SRO or any building with substantial shared space. For them the perfect property is a walkup with no shared indoor spaces to maintain, and the perfect tenant is a yuppie without a lot of price sensitivity.
  - stackskipton 11mo ago
    >If it were tenants rights, you'd expect SROs to go away in the parts of the country with the strongest tenants rights Tenants rights can make existing SROs harder to get rid of since evicting everyone so you can refurb into apartments or whatever is too costly. >As an aside I've known several smallish residential landlords (20-50 units) and they are, in general, strongly biased towards higher-income tenants That's every landlord. Higher income tenants tend to bring less problems overall.
    - Matticus_Rex 11mo ago
      > That's every landlord. Higher income tenants tend to bring less problems overall. Even moreso in states with expansive eviction protections. High-income tenants rarely squat. But at least for bigger landlords squatting isn't an existential risk.

by jordanb 11mo ago

HDThoreaun 11mo ago

There are still a decent number of sros in uptown. We’ll see how long that lasts with the new towers and zoning probably making them prime redevelopment targets.

andrewla 11mo ago

SROs still exist even in NYC; I used to live not far from one in Brooklyn that got bought and redeveloped. At one point in NYC there was a push for what they called "student living" or something, which was basically an SRO -- shared kitchens and bathrooms, etc., but all the ones I was aware of were made into city-run homeless shelters in the 2010s.

Matticus_Rex 11mo ago

Tenant rights didn't end SROs, but they made them much more expensive to operate in cities that make evictions difficult. Most cities were already discouraging them with zoning and building codes, and tenant rights expansions in some of the most expensive cities just doubled down. Where they still exist in significant quantity, it's usually because of subsidies, carve-outs that exempt them from some code or regulatory requirements, or both. NYC still has the most in the country, and might stop losing the ones they have so quickly thanks to some 2023 carve-outs and subsidies. But as a percentage of the housing stock (which is already too low!) they've declined from ~10% in the 1950s to >1% now. But it's very, very rare anywhere for new SROs to be built, and especially in the cities that could benefit most from them. Chicago passed an ordinance in 2014 to preserve the SROs they had, with subsidized loans and tax credits to operators, but between 2015 and 2020 they still lost 37% of their remaining SRO buildings (no more recent data seems easily available).

jordanb 11mo ago
It seems like half this discussion thread is trying to pin the problem on "tenants rights" while the other half is saying "SROs are bad because they house undesirables." If it were tenants rights, you'd expect SROs to go away in the parts of the country with the strongest tenants rights, subsidies or no. Instead, SROs disappearing seems mostly correlated with gentrification and nimbys. As an aside I've known several smallish residential landlords (20-50 units) and they are, in general, strongly biased towards higher-income tenants and totally unequipped to manage an SRO or any building with substantial shared space. For them the perfect property is a walkup with no shared indoor spaces to maintain, and the perfect tenant is a yuppie without a lot of price sensitivity.
- stackskipton 11mo ago
  >If it were tenants rights, you'd expect SROs to go away in the parts of the country with the strongest tenants rights Tenants rights can make existing SROs harder to get rid of since evicting everyone so you can refurb into apartments or whatever is too costly. >As an aside I've known several smallish residential landlords (20-50 units) and they are, in general, strongly biased towards higher-income tenants That's every landlord. Higher income tenants tend to bring less problems overall.
  - Matticus_Rex 11mo ago
    > That's every landlord. Higher income tenants tend to bring less problems overall. Even moreso in states with expansive eviction protections. High-income tenants rarely squat. But at least for bigger landlords squatting isn't an existential risk.