SRO

With its “Rooms for Rent” sign and weekly or monthly rates, the SRO once served a crucial role in the housing ecosystem of Los Angeles and other major cities, especially for younger residents, older adults, and those down on their luck.

Cities like Los Angeles lost tens of thousands of SRO units in the 1970s and ’80s, and many contemporary observers note that their loss coincides with the beginning of the modern homelessness crisis.

In L.A.’s Skid Row, the hotels and brothels fell into disrepair, many becoming single-room occupancy, or SRO, apartments that were the bottom rung of the city’s housing stock.

But as late as 1971, when a Times writer spent a week living in an SRO hotel room on 5th Street in Skid Row, rooms were still available for $2.50 a night, and for those who couldn’t afford it, there were all-night movie theaters where people could doze through old B-movies for 75 cents.

The urban revival in downtown L.A. produced 12,000 new homes but most were high-end apartments or lofts, and SRO hotel units continued to decline.