How single room occupancies could be the answer to NYC’s housing crisis

It was another local tragedy attracting passing notice before being overtaken for our attention by the latest stray bullet homicides and subway assaults.

But those concerned with “affordable housing” have much to learn from the Easter morning deaths of three Queens residents and the displacement of perhaps a dozen others in a fire in an illegal Jamaica Estates rooming house. 

The fact that so many were willing to pay $700 to $1,000 a month to cram into small, subdivided bedrooms with shared bath and kitchen tells us not that we need to ban such “single room occupancy” housing but that they should be a safe, legal and not rare part of our housing market.

Mayor Adams has tried to do just that in his City of Yes housing plan, but key legal obstacles remain.

There was a time when SROs were an extensive and crucial part of the city’s residential infrastructure, providing housing that was cheap because it was small.

At their height, there were hundreds of thousands such rooms, offering shelter for those who might otherwise be on the street.

But the same crowd that saw any modest housing as slums, and deinstitutionalized the mentally ill, declared war on SROs, phasing them out by law starting in 1954, to the point that the Furman Center at NYU has estimated only 30,000 such rooms remain, even as the homeless dot our street corners. 

To his credit, Eric Adams, in his housing proposal, has described the virtues of SROs well: “Allowing more small and shared apartments will create a wider variety of housing options, and open larger, family-sized apartments that would otherwise be occupied by roommates.”

The proposal is attentive to the fact that this need not be “flophouse” housing for the desperate; it cites the legendary Barbizon Hotel that provided a safe place for single women. Typical SROs include a front desk requiring ID and check-in.

SROs would be an especially good use for under-utilized office buildings, thanks to long hallways that could offer single rooms that share a kitchen and bath, rather than providing those for each unit.

There are, unfortunately, good reasons those who want to convert homes or buildings to SROs now do so illegally. The owner/operator of a 20-room SRO on West 23rd Street, for instance, laments that the law subjects SRO buildings to rent stabilization.

“We’d like to renovate the bathrooms, hallways, and intercoms, but since our rental income is extremely limited, we do not have enough income to invest in the building to make it more attractive,” he said.

What’s more, if a roomer moves out in less than six months, owners must pay the 5.8% hotel tax. An illegal operator avoids all the rent control red tape and any taxes, as well as, tragically, smoke detector laws, as was the case in the Queens fire.

The City Council, per Adams, took crucial first steps this past December toward bringing back SROs. They amended the city’s zoning law to make possible units smaller than 400 square feet, without individual kitchens or baths, as well as relaxing parking requirements. Sounds a lot like the dorms that affluent college students don’t mind living in. 

Unfortunately, however, the right zoning is not enough; as the city’s Housing and Preservation Department puts it: “The Housing Maintenance Code does not allow housing with shared facilities as-of-right.” 

As attorney Patrick Sullivan, who follows housing law for the law firm Kramer, Levin, Natalie’s and Frankel, explains: “Only specialized developers,” such as those for supportive housing, can take advantage of the new law. “Other legal changes are still needed for more widespread adoption of SROs.”

We need to make it easier to build SROs “as of right.”

For newcomers to the city, they can serve as a way station before trading up to a long-term apartment. For those who would rather not share their space with roommates, yet not live truly alone, SROs are also an option. 

Let’s hope the Adams administration continues to push for further legal changes so that SROs can become a more widespread and easy-to-realize housing option.

It’s a better approach than pushing, as per Democratic mayoral candidates, for still more subsidized “affordable” housing in a city that has more of it than anyplace else in the US — yet remains stuck in a perennial housing crisis.

Howard Husock is a senior fellow for domestic policy at the American Enterprise Institute