Happy to hear in today& #39;s Mpls Housing Advisory Committee meeting about the work starting to legalize single room occupancy housing. I volunteered to meet with city staff to give input. https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/File/2020-00703 ">https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/File/2020...

Single room occupancy (or rooming houses, or residential hotels) is a vital form of housing that can let people who would otherwise be sleeping outside have more privacy, security, and dignity (and would just be a good fit for others, too).

SROs were vital parts of American cities through WWII, then SROs were destroyed by urban renewal projects in the & #39;50s and & #39;60s. Around the same time, cities rewrote zoning codes to ban them. This was downtown Minneapolis:

Urban renewal treated SRO residents worse than some other victims. Officials didn& #39;t count SROs as permanent, so they didn& #39;t include them in reports of destroyed dwelling units. Feds gave displaced families $200, but displaced single people got just $5. (Living Downtown by Groth)

There are still a few SROs left in Minneapolis, but they& #39;re dwindling. The Drake burned down on Christmas day last year, leaving about 200 people homeless. There are rooms above the Schooner, which was damaged during the uprising.