For years, single-room occupancies, or SROs, have been a saving grace for thousands of San Diegans who are on the brink of homelessness.
The looming closure of the downtown Plaza Hotel, and its 185 rooms for meager rent, is setting off another wave of conversations about what the city could — or should — do to preserve aging SROs, considered the bottom rung of San Diego’s housing ladder.
On this week’s San Diego Explained, Voice of San Diego’s Lisa Halverstadt and NBC 7’s Catherine Garcia detail the ways in which the closing of the Plaza Hotel downtown paints a broader picture of the region’s housing crisis.