Until the late twentieth century, New York City had one housing option that has now all but disappeared: the single-room occupancy or SRO, also known as a rooming house unit. From the fictional Jo March in Little Women, who lived in a mid-19th-century rooming house, to the real-life Sylvia Plath, who lived at the storied Barbizon in the 1950s, to Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, who were two of the many musicians to occupy SROs at the Chelsea Hotel in the 1960s, SROs were once a staple of New York City housing. Could the SRO help address today’s growing housing crisis, at least for tens of thousands of single New Yorkers who arrive each year, often to start a new career?
In this article:
What is an SRO?
An SRO is one small room in a larger unit with space for sleeping and sometimes basic cooking facilities, but usually no separate bathroom. In SROs, the bathroom is usually on the same floor as the room but shared with other tenants. As per §27-2077 of the New York City Housing Maintenance Code, however, only six units (occupied by one person) can share a single bathroom, or, as it is referred to in the legislation, a “water closet.” In addition, each bathroom must include a sink and a bath or shower.
While most SROs met this description, as a 2018 study from NYU Furman Center emphasizes, the Housing Maintenance Code’s definitions make it clear that “the distinction between shares and SROs is not based on how space is designed.” As stated, “Adult roommates sharing an apartment where there are no locks on bedroom doors, and there is a single lease for the unit, are likely to meet the definition of a ‘family’ under the Housing Maintenance Code. However, in a situation where the occupants of an apartment are living independently from one another— which is the model we contemplate—the fact that they technically share an apartment does not insulate them from SRO status.”
SRO rules and regulations
If SROs are now rare in New York City, it is because it has now been virtually impossible to add more to the housing stock for more than 70 years. As clearly stated in § 27-2077 of the New York City Housing Maintenance Code, “No rooming unit which was not classified and recorded as such in the department prior to May fifteenth, nineteen hundred fifty-four or converted to such use prior to April thirtieth, nineteen hundred fifty-six, shall be created in any dwelling, whether such conversion is effected with or without physical alterations, except for rooming units.”
However, there are a few exceptions, including units owned or controlled and operated by a hospitals for occupancy by staff members, as well as units owned or controlled and operated by educational, religious or charitable institution “as a residence for the aged, or for working girls or women, or for working boys or men, or for delinquent, dependent or neglected children, or for students attending a school or college.” The law also includes a vague provision noting that SROs may be “approved by the commissioner of the department.”
SROs vs. co-living spaces
One might wonder, isn’t co-living space just an updated term for a rooming house or SRO? While modern co-living spaces and rooming houses or SROs tend to serve an overlapping demographic (mostly young single occupants who have come to the city to launch their careers), co-living spaces share more in common with shared apartments or houses than with SROs. After all, in a co-living space, one shares a kitchen and, depending on the room, also shares a bathroom. In an SRO, one typically rents a room that may have a small kitchenette and access to a shared bathroom, but no shared kitchen.
Could New York City revive the SRO?
After seven decades of prohibiting the introduction of new SROs, some local politicians are now pushing to reintroduce them by changing the laws that restrict their construction.
In November 2025, for example, then-Council Member Erik Bottcher introduced a bill designed to support the construction of new SROs as small as 100 square feet. While the legislation, backed by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, didn’t pass, parts of the bill were included in the City’s Shared Housing Roadmap. As now-State Senator Bottcher said, “Restoring this category of housing will not only give people a safe, high quality, and affordable place to live, it will also free up larger apartments for families and others who want and need them. Every New Yorker deserves a home they can afford in a neighborhood where they can thrive, and shared housing will help us make that possible.”
Whether SROs make a true comeback, however, will likely depend on several factors, including whether single New Yorkers would rather live in a small room without access to a communal living and kitchen area and whether the revival of SROs proves to be a truly affordable housing option or quickly becomes as out of reach as many of the city’s co-living spaces have already become since their introduction over the past decade.
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Contributing Writer
Cait Etherington
Cait Etherington has over twenty years of experience working as a journalist and communications consultant. Her articles and reviews have been published in newspapers and magazines across the United States and internationally. An experienced financial writer, Cait is committed to exposing the human side of stories about contemporary business, banking and workplace relations. She also enjoys writing about trends, lifestyles and real estate in New York City where she lives with her family in a cozy apartment on the twentieth floor of a Manhattan high rise.
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