San Francisco's Dirty Housing Secret

Although San Francisco's Chinatown is popular with tourists, it hides the city's worst housing conditions in high-density SROs.

1 minute read

December 28, 2001, 9:00 AM PST

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"For decades, Chinatown's 145 residential hotels, known as SROs, have represented what one county supervisor calls the most embarrassing secret in an otherwise glittering city where housing costs for a decade have been the nation's least affordable... Since March, building inspectors have found 1,578 code violations in the city's 20 worst SRO hotels. More than a quarter of those are in Chinatown."

Thanks to Chris Steins

Friday, December 28, 2001 in The Los Angeles Times

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