“In the city of New York there were laws
passed to push the private sector out of the SRO business [and eliminate SROs] on the theory that SROs were inhumane. Consequently, people sleep on grates outside.” — George McDonald
SROs, residential hotels, boarding houses and the like were all banned in the 1950s (and the surviving ones dismantled through the 1980s), a loss of about 100,000 units of affordable housing.
