“Many apartment buildings that require this kind of intimate cooperation have rough reputations that make them unappealing beyond the practical inconvenience of sharing a shower with half a dozen strangers — not an insignificant compromise in its own right. Single-room-occupancy buildings (rooming houses with six or more units) are often used as supportive housing for people coming out of homelessness or rehabilitation programs. Others are a landing pad for new immigrants. Some are quite grim, poorly run and badly maintained. ‘It is easy to lump together good S.R.O.’s and bad ones,' says Dov Treiman, a lawyer and the editor of The Housing Court Reporter. 'The most visible ones are those filling the almost last-ditch needs of the most needy in society.’"
RSS