Between 1955 and 2013, almost one million SRO units were eliminated in the US due to regulation, conversion or demolition.SROs used to be a fairly common form of market-rate housing available to any ordinary person living on a budget who didn't feel they needed a ton of space. They tended to be in walkable downtown areas where you could readily live without a car.
This made it possible for someone to live in a big city and get by on the wages from some entry-level job, like waitressing. It made it possible because housing is the single largest budget item for most people and, in the US, the need to own a car is the second biggest budget item and may not be very far behind the cost of housing as a percentage of their overall budget.
If you can get some place to live that's cheap enough and it is situated in a walkable neighborhood with access to public transit such that living without a car is feasible and comfortable, suddenly a lot of forces making life an untenable nightmare for so many Americans are moved out of your way and you can make your life work.
Having a place to live that is an affordable form of market-based housing such that you don't feel a prisoner of the system and could potentially move to some other SRO if you got fed up with this one preserves the freedom of the lower classes. This is an essential means to protect their ability to choose and their ability to exercise their rights and work towards a future of their dreams, whatever that may be.
The destruction of so much affordable, market-based housing is a critical factor in our current social problems in the US, such as high rates of homelessness and movements like "The ninety nine percent."
I hope to effectively argue that we need to bring back SROs, as well as other affordable forms of market-based housing, such as Missing Middle Housing. I also hope to flesh out some ideas on how that can get implemented in terms of details like financing.