"Leaky, smelly room in a San Francisco SRO: $1,000 a month"

SFGate | November 4, 2007

In a city with the third-highest median income in the country, about 30,000 San Franciscans – 4 percent of the city’s population – live in abysmal conditions in more than 500 single-room-occupancy hotels.

The hotels that fare worst are privately owned, which most are. There, residents pay $600 to $1,000 a month for an 8-by-10-foot room in buildings where the smell of human waste infuses the hallways from overflowing toilets; floors gather puddles from leaky pipes and ceilings; carpets go unchanged for decades; and rooms are infested with bedbugs, cockroaches and mice. Residents share dormitory-style toilets and showers, typically one or two per floor, and there are no cooking facilities.

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