Submitted by Acceptable-Poem-6219 t3_113qek7 in WorcesterMA
Interesting approach from Salem here, would love to see Worcester implement it. This combined with the push to legalize ADUs would help bring more low cost housing options to the city.
SALEM — Rooming houses continue to vanish in a booming real estate market, prompting one city councilor to pitch allowing the use in Salem for the first time in generations.
City officials are set to discuss “single-room occupancy,” a housing format that in 2023 may help alleviate Salem’s housing crisis and homelessness. Often known as boarding or rooming houses, single-room occupancy has effectively been banned from the beginning of zoning law in Salem when the first rules, adopted in late 1925, didn’t include the use.
Why the discussion has remained stagnant for close to a century is unclear. But city councilors will soon meet with the Salem police Community Impact Unit (CIU) and city planners to move the conversation forward.
Ty Hapworth, an at-large city councilor, said a recent CIU presentation showed “this as a contributing cause of homelessness — the loss of single-room occupancy in Salem.”
“Single-room occupancy is also known as a boarding house, a lodging house, communal living, something that in the past was pretty common,” Hapworth said. “Any large house in Salem may have been a boarding house at some point.”
But “since we instituted zoning nation-wide, and in Salem too, it’s been illegal in most places to create one,” Hapworth said. Today, single-room occupancy can only be allowed by a zoning variance, he explained, with no actual permitting path on the books in Salem.
“Going back to the late 19th century, there was definitely a movement to remove boarding houses from cities,” he said. “They thought it was something that contributed to the spread of disease and moral issues that we wouldn’t view as moral issues anymore.
“In removing them, you create this major hole in housing for communities all across the country,” Hapworth said.
A trend that has emerged as real estate values continue to climb is that buildings that may have historically supported single-room occupancy — which may not be apparent to anyone but their immediate neighbors — are prime targets for conversion into higher-income producing properties. Hapworth noted two examples of buildings on Howard Street that currently house such units but could now be converted into condos instead.
Another example of single-room occupancy in Salem is the Women’s Friend Society on Derby Street, a celebrated “women helping women” organization that has served and housed senior women since it first sought to create a “shelter for women” in 1878.
Were the organization to need a new home today, Hapworth said, it would never be allowed. The Women’s Friend Society would have no friends in Salem’s zoning code.
“These things don’t get replaced,” he said, returning to the two Howard Street properties. “Downtown lodging houses are a pretty affordable way to live near amenities. A lot of neighbors on Howard Street are concerned about what will happen to the folks living in those spots.”
Jason Etheridge, executive director of Lifebridge in Salem and River House in Beverly, highlighted more examples of single-room occupancy in the region: The YMCA of the North Shore has three sites dedicated to this housing in Beverly, Gloucester and Haverhill, and Lifebridge’s own “Seeds of Hope” program, which runs 22 units of single-room occupancy near its headquarters off Margin Street.
Seeds of Hope specifically targets “those who were once homeless,” its website reads. “Tenants receive ongoing case management and have full access to all other programmatic services provided on the campus.”
“Those are folks that were, at one point, unhoused,” Etheridge said. They “now live in these units and are very much part of the community, so much so that many folks don’t even know we operate or own those 22 units of housing.”
While Etheridge wasn’t aware of Hapworth’s proposal until after a call from a reporter, he was quick to say that “any discussion or investigation into innovative or alternative options for housing are huge.”
“We owe it to the community to look down this road and to see what the options might be to address this, and what I’m seeing as a housing crisis,” Etheridge said. “It speaks volumes of Salem, as well, to be able to bring these kinds of conversations to the forefront and not be afraid to look at creative or innovative ways to address the situation.”
Still, a permitting path for single-room occupancy won’t solve the housing crisis, he said. More support is needed after a homeless person has a roof over their head. The units, Etheridge said, make up just half the pie.
“I always want to be sure to add that housing is the answer... and we also need robust supportive services,” he said. “I’m definitely a proponent of any way that can create housing stock. There isn’t enough affordable housing; there isn’t enough subsidized housing; there isn’t even enough market rate housing.”
But for a door with a lock — there’s no placing value on that, says Hapworth. The ability to have a room with a door that locks “changes outcomes,” he said.
“If you look at just historically... Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in a boarding house. Emily Dickinson lived in one. Throughout American history, it was a key element for young people — they’d move to a new city, and the existence of boarding houses allowed people to survive,” Hapworth said. “In the last 50 years, we’ve lost a million single-room occupancy units, and it’s in my mind a major cause of homelessness nationwide.”
Quirky_Butterfly_946 t1_j8rx1gb wrote
The only wish I have for this is that these boarding houses are inspected regularly to make sure they are well maintained and any potential for crime is discouraged. People who need a place to stay for how ever long, do not need to live in a place that turns to squalor and end up being a dangerous blight.