We used to allow SROs, like the classic YMCA you'd see where people down on their luck would live in old movies. These are now illegal to build in most places, and the existing ones are being closed down.
Of course only a few of these units get built in any development, after much wrangling from the city, and then the city and the developers pat themselves on the back while the lack of housing is hardly budged and the affordable housing advocates are unappeased. I think SRO-style housing is the only realistic way to make affordable housing widely enough available that people well below the median income for an area can be guaranteed housing.
The "Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics" says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. It's probably part of our inherent "human nature" sense of ethics.
The SRO landlord is seen as exploiting poor people by taking their money in exchange for pretty terrible housing. So we ban the SROs, and now these people have to sleep in the streets.
But that actually feels OK, because NOW THERE IS NO ONE EXPLOITING THEM!
https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...