San Francisco Chinatown's "Single Room Occupancies"

By Ann Wong
posted 8/27/08

At the end of May, steering committee members and staff of the Chinese Progressive Association attended an API movement exchange in San Francisco, which brought together grassroots community organizations to learn from our experiences. Ten of us from CPA took the 6 hour flight, and although we were tired, once we received San Francisco CPA's warm welcome, we completely forgot our weariness.

During the three days of the exchange, the most unforgettable experience for me was visiting San Francisco's "Single Room Occupancy" housing. It's said that this kind of housing is 60% of the available housing in the city of San Francisco. This type of apartment was build after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Great Fire; all of the landowners were from the traditional and merchants' associations. Since at the time most overseas Chinese were single men, the so called "SRO"s could meet their needs. However, after several decades of change in the Chinese community, the numbers of immigrant households has continuously increased; now the available housing in Chinatown no longer meets people's needs.

We visited one four story building, which had up to 20 rooms per floor, lining both sides of the corridor. Most of the rooms had people inside who left the doors half open perhaps to let in a little air, because inside the room had no windows. When we looked inside a room we could see the whole entire abode, as the dimensions of a room were 10 by 12 feet only large enough to hold a bed and a table, not even big enough for a clothing cabinet. One of the residents came out and chatted with us; he had lived in the SRO for over 10 years, due to the cheaper rent. When he first moved in he was single, but then he had gotten married, and now has two children. The reason why his family stays living in the SRO is because of the lack of other housing options in Chinatown.

Most apartments with several bedrooms are very expensive; renting a one bedroom apartment costs about $1,500 per month, which is unaffordable to working class people therefore, he is in his current situation. Right now the rent of an SRO ranges from $500¬800 per month, depending on the size of the room and environment. Most of the tenants moving into the SROs are immigrant families. Because the number of people moving out is few, and those who want to move in are many, the rooms are high in demand and you almost need a back way in to get a room.

At the end of the corridor corner, there was a public bathroom. Our tour guide told us that six families have to share one bathroom; inside there was just one bathtub and one sink. The four walls and the ceiling looked as if they had only recently been painted and repaired. We passed the kitchen, where there were two residents busy cooking. Inside the facilities were all shared publicly, such as the stove, refrigerator, etc. The kitchen was only big enough for about two people to use at once. They said because of the small living space, the tenants have to schedule times with each other to use the kitchen, although they have never had a fight about it. The landlord only hires outside people to come clean the public spaces once per week.

After visiting the "SRO" housing, we saw how actually this term is a misnomer: what is known as "Single Room Occupancy" has actually changed into "Family Housing." However, nothing has changed about the general environment or living facilities. San Francisco CPA's staff said, because for many years there were no repairs or maintenance, these SRO's had large sanitation and safety problems, threatening the health of the tenants. San Francisco CPA encountered this situation several times, and for the past several years until now, they have been organizing tenants to struggle to improve their living conditions, to recognize how to protect tenants' basic rights, and moreover, to ask the landlords to care for and improve tenants living conditions quickly. The SROs that we visited that day, are much better than they were before!

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