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DANIEL ZWERDLING" IdRef="1" SpeakerRef="ZWERDLING"> Not so long ago, there was a gritty kind of place in every city known as the `single room occupancy hotel,' a place where people who were down on their luck could get a room and live cheaply. Then rising real estate costs forced many of them to shut down in the 1970s and '80s and, partly as a result, the rate of homelessness soared. But now the SRO, as it's called, is enjoying something of a comeback. Community groups are buying and renovating what used to be elegant hotels and converting them into what they say is safe, economic housing for the poor. Again, from New York, NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.
JIM ZARROLI" IdRef="2" SpeakerRef="ZARROLI">Once, the Times Square was an elegant tourist hotel, but in recent years it's undergone a transformation. With the opening of its west wing, the Times Square became the nation's largest permanent residential facility for homeless single people. It has some 650 rooms with baths, most with their own kitchenettes. Its tenants represent an equal mixture of the working poor and the formerly homeless. Many have histories of mental illness and drug abuse. Robert Green [sp] had been living on the streets for six...