Minneapolis was already experiencing housing and homelessness crises when the pandemic hit and made the need for affordable housing that much more acute — and apparent. Now, as policymakers consider solutions, some are turning to an old type of housing: the rooming house.
Officially known as Single Room Occupancy, in this type of housing a tenant rents a small room usually no larger than an average bedroom. The bathroom and kitchen are shared with other tenants. SRO buildings can vary in size and layout: some have a bathroom and kitchen on each floor, some have a large kitchen on the main floor shared by everyone. Some SROs come with a bathroom in each room but a communal kitchen. A typical feature of many SROs is that the room is fully furnished.
There used to be many rooming house units in Minneapolis and cities across the country until they were deemed undesirable “blight” that were demolished during the latter half of the 20th century. But as homelessness worsened around the nation, the SRO model has resurfaced as a low-barrier way to offer housing.
Now, Minneapolis City Council Members Cam Gordon, Lisa Goodman and Jeremy Schroeder have co-authored an ordinance in an attempt to make it easier to build Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing in the city. The ordinance is moving through various city committees and will soon enter a public-comment phase. The three council members believe the model of renting just a room while sharing a bathroom and kitchen with other tenants will make for an affordable option for Minneapolis’ homeless population.
SRO is making a comeback
In the 1920s and 1930s, through the 1960s, Minneapolis had thousands of rooming house units. It was a period in which an SRO unit could easily be found in any major city in America.
As the 1970s came, the congregate housing — which sometimes fell into uninhabitable disrepair — was demolished in place of other kinds of housing, and, really, anything else.
By the 1980s, Minneapolis put a freeze on SRO permits, grandfathering the SRO units already in place and blocking any more from being built.
“My time on the City Council, 50 years ago now, we were dealing with getting rid of SROs,” said Planning Commission Member Keith Ford during a June 14 meeting of the planning commission when the proposed ordinance was under discussion. He offered a mea culpa and said he is happy to see them return. He’s also happy to see the city take steps “to provide for a well-regulated and well-operated SRO system.”
Under the proposed ordinance, only nonprofit entities, like government agencies and nonprofit organizations, would be allowed to operate new SRO housing. Backers of the ordinance hope this will help a new wave of SRO housing avoid the issues that led to the decline of SROs in the past.
“The history of a lot of the issues [with SRO housing] came because of the management and not so much the housing type,” said Schroeder.
Gordon said he fears for-profit SRO operators would worry less about stable, low-barrier housing options for Minneapolis residents and more about making a buck. “I tend to think of the worst-case scenario sometimes,” said Gordon. “I represent all around the University of Minnesota and I could just see some developer deciding that they are going to make a luxury, state-of-the-art rooming house and make a fortune and charge $2,000 a room and put a rooftop garden on it and put a pool somewhere.”
New SRO housing would be limited to certain parts of the city. Details of the exact locations have yet to be nailed down, but the proposal places SRO zoning primarily in the city’s high density and medium density areas.
“What we are trying to do is get the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent,” said Goodman. “Which is: open it up, make it possible, show that it can work.”
Minneapolis’ existing rooming houses
Despite the current ban on new permits for SROs, there are still some examples of this type of housing in the city. Minneapolis-based nonprofit housing organization Alliance Housing currently owns multiple rooming houses in the city. Their largest SRO is on Pillsbury Avenue south of Franklin Avenue.
Rooms are rented fully furnished and overnight guests are prohibited. “We do that just because, a) it’s a small room, it doesn’t have a bathroom and a kitchen,” said Alliance Housing Executive Director Barbara Jeanetta. “And it helps keep the peace.” She said it took a couple of years to find out which tenants were “troublemakers” and which “wanted to live in peace.” Rents are on average $350 a month.
There are all kinds of people who might find the SRO model appealing, said Jeanetta. Alliance has tenants that simply do not want to deal with obtaining furniture or the upkeep involved in a bathroom or kitchen. An SRO unit is seen as a downsizing opportunity. Some SRO tenants are people who are alone and don’t need much — others, from families that can be demanding, relish the small space, said Jeanetta.
Ordinance moving forward quickly
The proposed ordinance is moving quickly through city commissions — Schroeder said there may be a version of an SRO ordinance on the books as early as August. The city will spend the rest of the summer notifying residents and neighborhood associations of the ordinance and requesting feedback.
So far, the council members supporting the ordinance say they haven’t heard much opposition.
“I’m actually getting more comments that [SRO] be allowed in more places,” said Gordon, adding that he believes the ordinance may be enacted before the end of the summer because city officials and residents, especially after the pandemic, are more open to more housing options.
Because Gordon pushed for more SRO when finalizing the 2040 plan, city staff had already spent time researching SRO housing. Gordon, Schroeder and Goodman jumpstarted the idea of an SRO ordinance last fall. It was approved by the city’s Planning Commission and is now on its way to the Business, Inspections, Housing & Zoning Committee.
The City Council could be discussing the ordinance as soon as this month and adopting it in August.
SROs are a great idea. But why limit this to non-profits and low income housing only? Why shouldn’t high end dorm type facilities with pools, fitness centers, shared gourmet kitchens, and shared luxury bathrooms with saunas and steamrooms be ineligible?
Exactly:
The City Council person:
“I represent all around the University of Minnesota and I could just see some developer deciding that they are going to make a luxury, state-of-the-art rooming house and make a fortune and charge $2,000 a room and put a rooftop garden on it and put a pool somewhere.”
And this is a problem because?
It is a perfect, affordable, housing solution for non-profits and if a for profit wants to do the same, how does that negatively affect the non-profit? And I don’t think they will start at $2,000 a room, and just maybe if the plan works, an individual has some life success with a new start in a subsidized SRO and decides that they can “move on up” a little to a for profit SRO with a little nicer amenities. Everyone wins.
A perfect example of how detached from reality the Minneapolis City Council is.
Could not agree more.
I think the issue is that if it is for-profit entities, it will actually happen. Restricting it to non-profits is the same as doing nothing.
They actually already exist–the new student housing around campus is pretty much for-profit SROs. There’s really no need for more expensive dorms. Plus, any time a bunch of people (frequently students) co-rent an apartment, which they can do, it achieves exactly the same goal as for-profit SROs. I lived in an “upscale” apartment complex that a bunch of college students also co-rented–it was obnoxious. It turned my experience into something less than upscale, and I was ticked that I was paying so much for just me and my boyfriend in order to live next to a frat house. I’m sure full grown adults could have done the same thing (and I’m sure they did, but I didn’t notice because they weren’t terrible neighbors). The well-paid apartment management wasn’t really interested in doing anything either. That’s what for-profit SROs would likely look like.
That said, I understand the concern around individual home owners being unable to lease rooms in their homes under these rules. I’m not sure such an arrangement should be considered SRO, but then, I think I recall that either Minneapolis or St. Paul were looking to remove/reduce restrictions on such arrangements separately.
Well, I live next to a young woman who rented out two of her three bedrooms to other young women (until she got married), and I know “housemates” and roommates are not an uncommon occurrence. I know property owners who rent out houses to people who sublet rooms. I don’t know what the ordinances are, and technically subletting is not allowed in a lot of lease agreements… but my guess would be that thousands of people are doing it the Metro area and beyond. When we say something like: “this stuff isn’t currently allowed” I don’t think there’s any real teeth to that observation. And the recent density fad has probably increased the practice.
I think what we’re talking about here is a different animal altogether… this is a proposal to actually build multi-unit purpose driven rooming houses that people can rent for less than $400 a month. I suppose to whatever extent there may be ordinances on the books prohibiting home owners from renting rooms… those ordinances could be repealed or modified, but I doubt those ordinances are actually preventing such rentals to a great extent.
My thinking, too. I can see that a lot of single people – especially younger ones – might not want the expense of an apartment when they are using it only as a place to sleep.
I could see where this would be a great way as a first step for some to move from homelessness. A safe place, an address, etc. Of course with the Msp clown council, I see it turning it a flop house ala Dragnet, where all the villains live in seedy hotels.
My paternal grandmother raised a family of four kids successfully. Then her husband died. She rented out the kid’s bedrooms as they left for college. She worked as a cook during the day and kept a house full of strangers at night. How many issues which seem to have us stymied were resolved this way without any public/governmental intrusion whatever? How many elderly people have space and skills who need money and company? Please, let people sort things out without official intrusion (which is almost inevitably unsuccessful).
Everything the government does isn’t an “intrusion” of some kind Howard, and in this case, we’re actually talking about rolling back some restrictions. And just so you know, I live next to a young woman who rented out two of her rooms for a couple of years until she got married, and one of my best friends in high school moved into a room he rented when he first moved out of his parents’ house (that was in the mid-80s). No government agents ever showed up to intrude. My worry with elderly folks who need some company is that they’ll end up victims of unscrupulous renters who take advantage in some way… I’ve actually seen that happen as well.
Consider what our fair cities have done vis a vis AirBNB’s, ADU’s for starters. I understand the need to keep the City’s coffers full but is this the way to do it? How about not getting into multi-million lawsuits?
I’ve lived in an SRO (in Winona) for the last five years. While there can be issues, depending on who else is living in the house, it’s definitely an affordable option.
And here come the law suits, 1 sexual assault at the community bathroom and!
Hopefully, the ordinance will not entail overly burdensome requirements (inspections, annual licensing) that discourage homeowners from renting out a spare bedroom. A great way for an elderly person to stay in their homes but have someone living there to help with expenses.
Homes that are actually built to be SRO’s should be subject to inspections and licensing requirements. Nothing is stopping existing homeowners from renting out empty bedrooms in their existing homes. An actual SRO home would be constructed as a communal residence.
Existing zoning ordinances limit the number of unrelated people who can live in a home, so you can’t just rent out your spare bedrooms without restrictions.
Never heard of AirBnb?
Sometimes it seems like the city council will throw any program or idea at the problem of “homelessness” to see what sticks – in contrast this seems to be something that would actually help, that could be accessible to people who might otherwise be homeless, who would be challenged to outfit even a small apartment with the essentials of furniture, cooking implements etc… I tend to agree that the limitation to non-profits only seems short-sighted and CM Gordon’s narrow view of how these fit into the overall Mpls housing landscape is remarkable uncreative – why not allow off-campus dorms? Basically that’s what these SRO are – you have your own bedroom, you share a bath and kitchen….. its a dorm! I agree though that they should be targeted into the Corridor type zoned areas in part because you may have people who need public transportation and that is where the larger buildings are to be anyway. That would make more sense than setting one up somewhere in the middle of an Interior 1 block far from those amenities.
If the Government gets involved, another good housing option will be relegated to a designated few and most Minnesotans will have no option to be involved.
The government has to get involved, by changing zoning ordinances.
While this is a great idea for many people, it’s not going to work for people with serious allergies….which is a quickly growing population as “long haul COVID” patients develop Mast Cell Activation Syndrome.
The only way that people with innate immune system dysfunction will achieve safe housing, both in Minnesota and across the country, would be to create dedicated allergen-free villages, ideally in abandoned shopping malls. It would create tons of jobs and significantly reduce the dependence on the social safety net, which is completely inadequate for people whose illness is directly triggered by being around other people.
salvos aptissimum
Many of the comments are quite good. My family owned a home in the Lowry Hill Neighborhood. In what was intended to be a maid’s quarters, with a stairwell in the house only to be used by the housekeeper or provocative male owner, the home built in 1902 was renovated. The domestic stairwell was remodeled into closet and storage spaces, and my parents rented out the upstairs unit to serve as a place for, first, a reclusive family friend of twenty-years to live in; then, as a place for two more grad students to live in at different times. I enjoyed the company as a teenager, as it was great to have John, then an MD and child psychiatrist, never employed due to the hundreds of millions of dollars his family developed over the generations in the coal and law industries in Pittsburg — serving the Middle East, and due to his poor self-esteem, despite his brilliance.
However, I have lived in a number of rooming houses in Dinkytown. My parents made it clear to the “White male privilieged youth” that what the previous generation had done to carve out a reputation and high income for themselves was not for their children to suck on till death do us part. I hated living in rooming houses. The landlords were scum. They never fixed the property. They didn’t screen the tenants to assure that they were responsible and considerate; and legions upon legions of cockroaches inhabited one of the houses just off of Fourth Street SE. I found a dead rat in my room in another house near 10th Street and University Avenue when I returned to move in an hour after signing my lease.
The odors of cockroach scat, the sounds of people having sex in other rooms, the wailing of an psychological disturbed woman who walked around on campus in nothing more than pajamas with footies; and the odor of smoke from cigarettes, joints, and bongs were all a part of SRO life in the 1990s in Cam Gordon’s Ward Two.
I appreciate Cam’s idealism and care for homeless people. However, my experiences with SRO’s (rooming houses) while living as a student and full-time employee in 1989-1990 were miserable. Gun violence is already bad in Minneapolis, as is other kinds of brutality. Without strong licensing requirements and based on hygiene, public health and safety, and integrity of owners who have enough reserve and ongoing capital to finance upkeep, remodeling, repainting, and reflooring older homes, this will again lead to a calamity.
The individual who fifty years ago put down the idea of allowing our city to continue with this congregate housing had it right the first time. His “mea culpa,” if he wants to use a Latin term to provide sophistication to his newer thoughts on the matter, does not meet my scrutiny.
Certainly, we need housing at prices which poor and broke parties can pay to remain inside. The tent camps which have gone up in public parks and under bridges on Franklin Avenue near Seward and in Ward Two are not at all helpful, safe, or healthy. They interfere with the original intention of public spaces and create hazards which may turn to peril if one or more of the campers gets drunk or high, or into a fight, and is pushed or otherwise falls into traffic..
However, as one who has been extremely broke during a recession, with no financial assistance from my affluent parents, aside from great conversations at very nice restaurants as they paid as much for one marble tile to help remodel their home as I paid in a month for rent at a rooming house, I do see the need for single occupancy rooms. Given, however, the reality that they can be used for prostitution, human trafficking, illicit drug sales and use, and at a great profit to the renter — if low rent remains a reality for them, I see a need for reputable and formal stewardship of properties of this nature.
As one who has studied real estate as a pre-Realtor but never got involved with the industry, and real estate development and entrepreneurship, I can see that loads of money can be made in this niche. As one who cares for people, I am at odds with this idea unless we can guarantee reputable and well-financed people will be involved with ownership and management of these properties. It is one thing to be a council member. It is something altogether different to be an owner and neighbor in this kind of space. The social and behavioral culture in Minnesota has significantly changed over the past one-hundred years. “Anything goes” is the new belief of what the Democratic and Green parties stand for in terms of civil liberties — and I have a strong foundation in the DFL.
It is one thing to own a family home and rent out a room or two, with some supervision over the renter; it is quite another thing to have small spaces for people to rent. Before proceeding, please review the successes and failure which are happening in Tokyo and Hong Kong with literally “bed rooms” with now space for much other than laying down and sitting up in a space for inhabitation. They exist and they have been written about by useful journalists.
My comment about the DFL was not quite the way I should have put it. The Party has an ongoing platform which is very good and which supplies those of us who care to read it with a strong understanding of principles.
https://dfl.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-06-DFL-Constitution-Rev-A-Adopted-22-May-2021.pdf
The concern that I have is of some people, especially some people currently serving in our Minneapolis City Council and many of their supporters who believe that liberty without responsibility or concern for understanding the ratio of bad players in our police force, against those many who are great to adequate (and who support the BIPOC community to the fullest without criticism of those in the community who are damaging, dangerous, and deadly), is a mark of honor and rationality.
I have served as an officer of the Party for a decade, and have volunteered for over forty-two years. I have read biographies of two U.S. vice presidents from our Party, and have had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Mondale on three occasions and be inspired by his common sense and rational and loving care for our community.
What I am seeing among some very vocal members of the community who claim to be Democrats has nothing to do with the strongest spirit of this political party. It is this concern which I meant to nuance.
It is important to care for the most vulnerable; but it is also important to regulate industries such as housing in a manner that care can be assured to properties and that criminal and unhealthy behavior can be limited to a point that the highest good of our community is not undermined. These are the concerns that I have for this proposal to bring back “rooming houses.”
Barry, I think we’ve learned enough from past mistakes that we can create a sensible model for house managers, care workers, and tenants in the new SRO framework.
Unlikely, what would happen is you’d just see intensified segregation by default depending on who ran them or you’d have people turned away if the government ran them as they’d be glorified shelters. Essentially, young formerly middle-class young people would room in houses run by other middle-class people who would screen out people who would cause trouble. This inevitably would fall along demographic lines seen as discriminatory and you’d see what we have now: landlords becoming slum lords or selling their properties because they can’t rightfully discriminate.
If the government ran them, you’d see many people turned down by legal means of discrimination, rightfully so. Unfortunately that would lead to law suits and advocates trying to basically allow tenants to do what they want.
The result would be failure regardless.
Barry, I would suggest the problem you’re trying to recognize begins with the domination of the neoliberal New Democrats when they took over the Democratic Party in the late 70’s and early 80’s. At that point the Party essentially stopped being a liberal Party and became a “bipartisan” regime seeking common ground with Republicans. The regulation you suggest would be common sense to liberals, but is an anathema to neoliberal Democrats who assume market competition will resolve any important problem. I would remind you that to this day, Jimmy Carter still brags that his greatest accomplishment as president was his massive program of deregulation. I would also remind you that Al Gore presided over the most massive privatization of government services in US (remember they called it: “reinventing government?) At this point, the instinctive hostility that so many Democrats have towards even moderately liberal proposals is a central feature of the “moderate/centrist” faction that’s trying to maintain control of the Party. Everything from rent control to MFA seems to burn these guys like holy water on a vampire.
How tone-deaf some of us are! The entire point of SRO living for homeless persons is affordability so that they have a place to call Home rather than live on the streets or spend their entire SSD on housing! This won’t happen in a profit-making environment. The key to SRO success is solid, competent, and well-compensated management on-site so that 1) the facilities are cleaned, maintained, and used appropriately (I think a cooperative model works well here); and 2) on or near buslines for easy access to services. Case workers or social workers will have to be an integral element of the overall care plan these residents receive. The Pillsbury address is the perfect example of what worked. What didn’t work 50 years ago is that the management model was missing. Fortunately, we’ve learned a lot since mid-century and our social reckoning with enormous homeless populations is front and center.
Nope. You’ve got it completely wrong. By limiting for-profit housing, you are restricting the housing supply. It is your aversion to for-profit housing that is exacerbates the homelessness problem.
The problem with that is resource access and funding. Basically you’re talking about glorified shelters that mitigate costs with low-rent. The other issue is lack of triage. Either the screening process would be tight and few would have access and it would essentially be operated like a jail or shelter with people being nannied, or, they would be sued by advocates and there would be no screening and they would just end up like the violent shelters we have now.
Unless there is proper triage it is all for not.
Man, the power of neoliberal myopia can be truly amazing. This notion that monetization is the ONLY possible solution to any problem despite decades of failure in a variety of attempts to solve problems via monetization is just so impervious to common sense and factual analysis.
Here we have a proposal to create some truly affordable housing and the big criticism is that it prevents slum lords from raking in big bucks OR prevents developers from building unaffordable luxury alternatives.
Gordon is absolutely correct, and his assumptions are clearly verified by comments here, when he worries that developers will just build high end rooming houses the same way they currently build high end condos, town homes, apartments, and houses. Without the non-profit restrictions we’d either end up with the garbage we tore down in the 60’s, (such as that Mr. Peterson describes)or a luxury fad that would eventually become the garbage we tore down in the 60’s AFTER developers make their money and the “tiny” fad…. fades. We KNOW what rooming houses look like in a free market for profit scenario… been there done that.
Over and over again we see this neoliberal inability to even recognize the fact that we actually have a crises wherein human beings in America and MN cannot find housing they can afford to live in. This is a decades long ongoing crises that the “market” has not and will not resolve because everyone trying to make money is chasing the big money, which what profit motive does in capitalist economies. This facile insistence that the ONLY problem we need concern ourselves with is whether or not builders, owners, landlords, whoever… are making as much money as they want to and EVERYTHING else will sort itself out is pure privilege and entitlement attempting to dominate policy and discourse.
Why should an SRO housing option be limited to low income renters? There are a lot of other people over a wide income spectrum who are interested in this type of housing model. Some to save money, some who want the social interaction. This could also be an interesting model for seniors who want to live independently, but not necessarily alone.
None of this implies that the government shouldn’t be involved in building, managing, or subsidizing, low income SRO housing. You just need to understand that if only low income SRO housing is permitted, then no one is going to want these kinds of projects in their neighborhoods.
Thanks for the great example of neoliberal myopia Mr. Schmann… I mean that sincerely, I’m not being snarky.
I think I answered your question in my previous remark but I’ll recap assuming that I failed the first time.
The socioeconomic problem we’re trying to solve here is NOT finding a new way for those who currently make gobs of money to make more gobs of money (i.e. those in real estate industry). The problem we’re working on is creating affordable places for real human beings who cannot find affordable places to live. Creating or finding new markets for investors and others to exploit doesn’t solve problems like this.
The neoliberal assumption that making more money for those already making a bunch of money will necessarily solve the housing crises is a neoliberal falsehood based on Libertarian myths that were organized and promoted by Ayn Rand and her followers. The idea that selfish people getting rich will solve problems for everyone else and create the best outcomes is literally and exercise in collective sociopathy. This is not a controversial observation, we’ve seen a multitude of ongoing and perfectly resolvable crises converted into chronic and irresolvable crises (housing, health care, infrastructure, energy, high speed internet, etc. etc. etc.) by this myopic, faith based, sociopathic, hegemony for decades.
At some point you have to stop doubling down on failure… I think 4 plus decades is well past that point is well past.
I am not advocating creating new ways for people to make gobs of money. What I am saying is that people, whether they are rich or poor, should have the same options to pick the kind of living arrangements and lifestyle that they want. Living in a SRO type of residence could be appealing to a wide cross section of people. Why should the government limit this option just to a low income group? Doing so would immediately label the whole SRO housing sector as undesirable to a lot of people with a NIMBY attitude.
The market? In this case the market isn’t allowed to operate. Gordon wants the government to limit who can build housing.
Another logical reason for the non-profit requirement is that the proposal is to build NEW rooming houses… which require land and space that won’t be available if they’re forced to compete with for profit builders that would outbid them for the property.
This discussion has lost some definitional clarity, and some factual realities about Minneapolis’s housing situation.
First, there is no longer any restriction in our city on the number of unrelated single adults who may occupy a rental “unit.” A single family house, or a duplex, or a triplex, may be built (under the infamous Minneapolis 2040 Plan) with six to ten bedrooms per “unit”, meaning that a triplex could have eighteen to twenty-seven bedrooms for single adults. Realizing the error made on this, Council is considering limiting, once again, the occupancy level of a rental “unit,” but they have grandfathered in a new “duplex” across the street from me which will house, this fall, six adults in one duplex unit, and seven in the other. That’s on a 40-foot-wide city lot, with no parking off-street. So, thirteen where the earlier limit for the SFH before was three unrelated single adults (without inspections, there were usually five renters there).
[By the way: In the Como neighborhood, current city housing provisions are enabling the massive teardown of affordable older homes, well-built and still viable but without lots of “rooms” to rent out to single adults. So they are replaced by duplexes and triplexes where tons of single people can rent a “room,” as the new duplex across the street from me allows for.]
Second, there is already a separate zoning category for “congregate housing,” which–when it was first brought in to get its nose under the tent–was supposed to be purpose-driven and full of rules and regulations for a self-defined “community” that even had written group contracts about care and maintenance. This single-room-occupancy regulation is just a return to a large group of constantly-changing renters (by the week? by the month? by a typical rental “season” of a year?) who may or may not know each other and who may or may not devise rules for who cleans the toilets and showers and does dishes in the “kitchen.”
There is no on-site management required or expected in these SROs. We are definitely NOT talking about a widow who rents out rooms in her home to students or single workers. The main reason “rooming houses” got so run-down and seedy, and were thus abolished decades ago, is there was no on-site control of maintenance or unacceptable behaviors. No supervision, just rooms.
And the idea that those who are homeless don’t have mental and substance-abuse problems of major sorts is simply naive. These SROs are going to be problematic if they are occupied by that population without supervision and substantive social services attached. Unless they truly ARE “congregate homes.”
Just to build off of Ms. Sullivan’s comment here, I can offer some insight regarding those with mental illness.
The ongoing crises in homelessness for those struggling with mental illness is more systematic than is generally recognized or discussed. Yes, housing for people with chronic mental illness is more service intensive than other kinds of housing… but it would probably surprise most people to find out that there is only one long term housing solution for people with chronic mental illness in the Twin Cities, and that’s Andrew’s Residence. Andrew’s is full most of the time.
Sure, we have maybe hundreds of residential homes for people with mental illness (I worked at several of them), but those are typically structured as limited or even short term options that provide housing and programing for months or up to three years. This housing emerged from a collection of ill advised but well intentioned attempts to re-integrate or mainstream former residents of State Hospitals during the de-institutionalization era in the 1970’s. The idea was that these residential settings could be “transitional”, hence the limited availability of that housing.
The problem is that chronic mental illness isn’t transitory, it’s…. chronic. Not all schizophrenics can “transition” out of group homes into their own apartments, as laudable as that objective was. The fact is a lot of these people need forever homes, and that simply doesn’t exist. So no, rooming houses, section 8, public housing, whatever might might work well for people who don’t struggle with certain chronic mental illness, won’t work for that population.
I don’t think it’s practical to try to build mental health services into mixed housing that’s merely designed to be affordable. The level of service, i.e. medication monitoring, transportation, social services, etc. etc. is a whole-nuther ball of wax that no rooming house or apartment building can be expected to meet; these have to built-in not add-on services. We’re not going to simply absorb this population into new affordable housing regimes, we will need to create housing designed to provide that level of service indefinitely for those who need it. Simply having management of some kind onsite would be woefully inadequate.
Of course, we can’t get into this topic without first recognizing huge deficits in terms of the regulation and oversight of current residential programs… so if we’re ever really get serious about leaving these market-based fantasies behind and looking the real problems we’ll have to get into that as well.