The city's new hotel law will mean some changes for the city's single-room occupancy buildings. Most significantly, SROs will no longer be allowed to be used as hotels, with the city hoping they'll return to their original purpose as affordable housing. A nice idea?but SRO owners say they'll actually be forced to lease their buildings to any tenant who comes along in order to pay the rent. At the Upper West Side's Hotel Alexander (right), this tenant might be Samaritan Village, a non-profit hoping to open a 200-bed transitional housing facility, to the great displeasure of neighbors who spoke up at a Community Board 7 meeting last night. "Everybody is in favor of affordable housing," one Upper West Sider told CB 7. "[But] we have compassion fatigue. We shouldn't be the only place the city comes to." They aren't: according to DNAinfo, the neighborhood contains 21 percent of Manhattan's homeless facilities. But all that fatigue can make things seem overwhelming.
· New Hotel Ban Opens Door to Homeless [DNAinfo]
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