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The "SROs are good, actually" argument re-emerges periodically on here, forcing me to repeat this rejoinder: In SROs, tenants almost always share kitchens and bathrooms (that's why they're cheap). This arrangement for housing the down-and-out works if the manager can throw a misbehaving tenant out instantly. Otherwise, one bad apple spoils the barrel. Under modern landlord-tenant law (in CA, at least), throwing a misbehaving tenant out takes months and costs four or five figures, which makes operating an SRO safely & profitably extremely difficult (viz. the troubles besetting the SRO Housing Corp. in LA). (Note that this same dynamic makes operating co-living very difficult, which is why we have been hired to transition at least one one large co-living asset to conventional rentals, with more possibly on the way.)

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Ben Furnas

@bfurnas

Nov 15

“A typical SRO rent in 1924 was $230 per month—in today’s dollars.” x.com/dpearsonphl/st…

8:49 AM · Nov 16, 2025

484.7K

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David Watson 🥑

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Did I at one point strongly consider buying an SRO and renovating it into apartments, thereby requiring a deep dive into their history, regulation and current operations? I did!

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Chewy Yorkie

@ChewyYorkie

Nov 16

Replying to @ChaimKatz7 and @aarmlovi

Here is paywall free access (

that your refuse to pay for the NYT while freely citing it to make your argument)… but look at what actually killed SRO’s based on the article: anti-slumlord and “tenants rights” regulations 💁‍♀️

💁‍♀️

nytimes.com/1996/01/14/mag

Could you put a number on each door and a fire alarm on each floor and then license it as a "hotel?" It would change your pricing structure and taxs but police remove hotel squatters within an hour of them not paying the first time. May be viable? No professional renter issues

At least in LA, you absolutely can't convert an apartment building or SRO into a hotel... totally different permitting system (Set up, in part, to help the hotel unions try to force unionization)

good post the less you know about something the easier it seems, SRO's look really easy ; - ) I'd venture CA law n policy make all multi-family more expensive . . . you need to budget the occasional 100k "bad apple", good tenants pay this in the end

Yup

Motels don't have this problem. Isn't it a matter of putting SROs in the right regulatory bucket? Though the problem also undermines rental markets, too.

30+ day stay grants tenancy (at least in CA)

It would work if it operated like a hotel, with day to day bookings and automatic termination upon the end of a booking.

Think you generally get tenancy rights at 30 days Anyway, the LA SROs are covered by RSO, so it's illegal to rent for short term and you can stay forever

Real Estate Lawyer

a general counsel for a co-living start up (raised high eight figures) once told me that they do not need to follow local rules and rent control laws because 'it's not a tenancy they are licensees, we did compliance on this' and then abandoned building with the 'licensees' still

Yeah I've seen exactly the same sh*t

even if SROs had some sort of expedited eviction scheme, i doubt new ones would pencil when you can just build market-rate in the same location

On paper, co-living (modern SROs) pencil better, which is why people built them It's just that they don't operate like that in real life

Bingo!!!

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Chewy Yorkie

@ChewyYorkie

Nov 16

Replying to @ChaimKatz7 and @aarmlovi

Here is paywall free access (

that your refuse to pay for the NYT while freely citing it to make your argument)… but look at what actually killed SRO’s based on the article: anti-slumlord and “tenants rights” regulations 💁‍♀️

💁‍♀️

nytimes.com/1996/01/14/mag

Valuable addition to the conversation - thank you

Braden Williams

what turns someone from a guest (ie in a hotel) to a tenant (in an apartment)? length of stay?

Typically, yes

Breeding Pomposity

The amount of distortion it takes to give the worst elements of society 2nd chances they don’t deserve is just staggering. It’s the low income, but decent and hard working who suffer the most for these policies.

100%

@danhortondaily

Can these be operated as something like hostels or hotels, with more favorable landlord provisions, while retaining affordability?

Depends on the jurisdiction, but, generally, once you hit 30 days of occupancy, you get tenancy rights

Empty Can of LaCroix - Two State Now

@ihatebambisleep

SROs are bad, actually Housing is a right, and that means privacy

How can something that requires others' labor be a right?

it’s a hostel...

Except w tenancy rights

REBUILD CALIFORNIA

@curecalifornia

Anecdotal: Few of the SROs I looked at back in the day had shared bathrooms or kitchens. Most didn't have kitchens at all. The ones that had shared bathrooms had some shared and some having their own.

This basically sounds like the French labor market issue where when you make it hard to fire someone, you unintentionally mean nobody wants to hire anybody that isn't going to be a slam dunk (younger people)

What this really seems to call for is an exception from traditional landlord-tenant law, much like hotels have.

Against Narrative

This seems less like a rejoinder to "SROs are good" than a reminder that California (among other states) has horrible governance that makes lots of good things unworkable.

> This arrangement for housing the down-and-out works if the manager can throw a misbehaving tenant out instantly. True, and important, and should be done in any case.

@TheRingOfGyges

Tenant landlord laws also can make it impossible for tenants to evict guests who have stayed too long. Makes it super risky to take in couch surfers or family or subletters

build mixed use taco-houses

Florida should experiment with this since they can politically eliminate the crime and eviction problem.

Did not know this. Really interesting. Thanks for sharing the history

Without contravening existing airport protection legislation, are there alternative methods for managing the bad apple problem?

Harrison Finberg

@harrisonfinberg

Yep i looked into a company called Segal suites in Nevada that kind of scaled it with motels and it’s technically ‘extended stay’ so no lease protections. Lots of controversy and definitely wouldn’t fly in most states.

You don't think today it would work for yuppies. Almost everyone has roommates would rather have room with nice shared amenities.

It’s a CA problem. Not fundamentally shared home problem. My cousin used up live in one of those. It was about $1000 a month btw. A guy brought in a dog while it was against the agreement. Everyone left but the guy stayed as they could not kick him out. Fix CA first

SignalToNoiseRatio

I have caved in some ways on SROs in the fact that I think every room needs to have its own toilet and handwashing sink. Shared showers & kitchens are fine, but sickness can spread too rapidly with shared toilets. Quarantine must be possible.

I wonder if there could be an unemployment insurance like scheme where a landlord could quickly evic, the person is given a standard hotel accommodations for a month and expedited adjudication. If the landlord is found deficient, the tenant collects 6m rent but is still out.

Any chance they can be reclassified as hotels or something? How are the rules for hotels different?

It would have to be run as a hotel and not subject to landlord tenant law

Right. If regulations makes something that people want and is socially desirable not economically viable, the regulations are the problem and need to change. It’s madness that we have made SROs unviable.

Yes, a highly difficult industry due to regulations.

Philly Libertarian

@Philadeliberty

Another reason tenant protections are bad

We're an odd duck at

, a 41 BR co-living SRO in SF (Mission District) that attracts mostly young professionals. I've seen other co-housings come & go in these 13 years, and attribute much of our longevity to SRO status (+ 3 mo min). More options like this should exist!

This kind of accommodation must be run by a benevolent dictator to work. Cause trouble? Out, now. Any bureaucratic interference ruins it for everyone.

@strenuouslyobje

Just in theory, because obviously the practice of dealing with the CA legislature on this would be impossible, you could change the law on eviction for licensed SRO’s, right?

CM Goat Wrangler

It’s almost like when you declare by regulatory fiat that one contract party must have a larger bundle of rights to transact, the price of that contract goes up Increasing tenant stickiness increases market rents Tenant protections are amenities 🤷🏻‍♀️

🤷🏻‍♀️

GeorgeWilliamHerbert

@GeorgeWHerbert

We do need housing for current homeless. There needs to be a supportive structure not letting others be made miserable, though. And I don’t know how you solve all that without a lot of tiers.

This barely even works on college campuses these days. Imagine trying to do it in Manhattan or mid-city Los Angeles? People need to stop putting things that belong in Tokyo in American cities.

And if your landlord can throw you out for listening to music at a normal volume at noon claiming you’re misbehaving, it makes renting untenable. Some amount of protections for tenants is good

I'd be very interested to hear about London's disappearing bedsits (SRO-type accommodation) that had significant market share in pre-2000's. Rented mostly on weekly or month-to-month basis. Default assumption is that they had been regulated out of business

Was about to look into that. I assumed "tenant protection laws" made these untenable. Figures.

Thank you for this post. This is a dynamic with SROs I hadn't considered (sincere compliment).

@MandalorianGe0

This is not uncommon in the oilfields. My company used to rent a house and when you were not on the rig you could live in the company house instead. It was like 200 bucks a month. No one had their own room, or even their own bed and everyone was always cycling in and out.

UnrenderedSkyYoung

@MobCharacter36

um akchually the new "communal living" apartments springing up here are far from cheap and I can't afford them either. sros alone are not going to fix the problem

Pass a law so that SROs are exempt from all that.

True

I’ve helped manage one once. Do not recommend. It leaves a mark on your psyche

Rufous McKinney

@MckinneyRufous

There was a big old Victorian farmhouse out in the countryside, outside Sacramento, and all these old men resided there. Scattered rocking chairs, porches. Out in the boonies. Wonder how they got fed? Now the boonies is suburbia on steroids. Sprawled to forever.

Here in Perth, WA the public housing authority Homewest bought a 24 unit complex in Inglewood. Police so far have been called 300 times to the complex. The Minister for Housing said a Magistrate must approve all public housing evictions.

SRO are only viable if you can evict with 1 week notice and no fault.

Kudos for correctly using the "one bad apple" analogy.

Classic “tenants rights”

Laws are not permanent, they can be changed

Good point. It's like capitalism needs to be connected to the fact that a bad business can fail or it won't work.

@2thegreat166318

OH! Very good point.

Rufous McKinney

@MckinneyRufous

a huge problem now is the mentally ill are not cared for, and thats all it takes. One of those. Hoarders: recall the knap sack on the end of a stick that the hobo once carried with? Now its three shopping carts tied together.

Mandatory credit check before renting. It's cheap and a great filter for badniks

@BalderdashianLA

SRO's can have bathrooms and tiny kitchens. Common areas do not have to be part of the unit so you can ban people from them without evicting them from their room.

thanka for posting this

better than being homeless. you dont understand the phycological impact of having a room for yourself.

Most homeless aren’t just “down and out@. They’re drug-addled, less than sane, often violent and dangerous. It’s not all Little Orphan Annie, angels wit’ dirty faces.

Couldn't we just treat them as hotels, rather than residences? Surely hotels have the right to expel guests that don't wash their dishes.

Mindless Gibberish

Could they possibly just run as a hotel with a very cheap nightly rate? As far as I know hotels don’t have problems with squatters or other anti-social behavior but maybe they do.

ok so you agree we made SRO unviable by law

@ArizonaSarahRat

Ooh good point.

@JimmytheButt202

Agreed that CA is a failed state.