How Zoning Laws Eliminated America's Cheapest Housing: Boarding Houses and SROs
By
surprisetalk
8mo ago· 3 min readenInsight
75/100
Toasty
Bagelometer↗
Crisped on the outside, thoughtful enough on the inside.
Score75TypeanalysisSentimentnegative
Summary
This article discusses how zoning laws, occupancy limits, and building regulations have effectively made boarding houses and single-room occupancies (SROs) illegal in many U.S. cities, eliminating one of the most affordable housing options for low-income Americans. The author references a Pew report that examines how states and cities decimated this lowest-cost housing option through rules requiring private bathrooms, banning shared kitchens, mandating parking spaces, and enforcing single-family zoning.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledBoarding houses were made illegal by zoning that enforced single family homes and by rules limiting occupancy, demanding every room have a private bathroom, outlawing shared kitchens, requiring parking spaces for every resident etc.
How States and Cities Decimated Americans' Lowest-Cost Housing Option is an excellent, hard-hitting piece making and extending these points
Low-cost micro-units, often called single-room occupancies, or SROs, were once a reliable form of housing
I tweeted years ago; Boarding houses were made illegal by zoning that enforced single family homes and by rules limiting occupancy, demanding every room have a private bathroom, outlawing shared kitchens, requiring parking spaces for every resident etc. H
