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Old Posted May 31, 2007, 8:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wburg View Post
The problem is that most of the SROs are in miserably bad condition, indifferently maintained, physically dangerous, for the most part not air-conditioned, and generally pretty miserable places to live. Most feature shared bathrooms on each floor, and only a couple have any sort of cooking facilities. The people who live there do so because for the most part they literally can't afford to live anyplace else, or have bad credit histories and can't rent anyplace that does a background check.

In fact, most of the SROs aren't part of Sacramento's inclusionary housing program at all. They're cheap because they are run by slumlords, not because they are government-subsidized (once again, with a couple of exceptions.) Building substitute housing for SRO residents will probably require massive government subsidy, simply because housing is so expensive to build, and you quite literally can't build SRO-style housing (with shared bathrooms, no kitchens, etc.) legally anymore. Retrofitting and repair of the existing buildings, but maintaining the building's purpose, and introducing management slightly less indifferent to the population's well-being would solve many of the SRO hotels' perception problems.

Having had the chance to visit a Chicago SRO on a fact finding mission, so as to guage the effects of poverty, I would have to agree with everything you said here wburg.

You summed it up well by stating

"Retrofitting and repair of the existing buildings, but maintaining the building's purpose, and introducing management slightly less indifferent to the population's well-being would solve many of the SRO hotels' perception problems."


Sacramento can't afford to lose any additonal SRO's. But admittedly the properties need to cleaned up. Some people live in SRO's because that's all that they can afford. Losing these places to the bulldozer will mean more people on the streets.

It makes more sense, (as I've stated before), to build the kind of low income housing for those on low or fixed incomes (you can include students and artists) etc that can blend with the with \what Sacramento is trying to accomplish. That is becoming a place that attracts a mix of incomes to live downtown and midstown.

Sacramento's best example would be Pensione K...
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