A Hyde Park SRO shows how St. Louis is retrying an old housing model

Neither Juan Redmon Sr., an Army veteran, nor Rasheedah Furqan Clay, his landlady, would describe his tenure at her building in Hyde Park as problem-free. It has, however, held a certain logic for both of them. 

The dwelling consists of four single-room occupancies (SROs)—that is, four furnished bedrooms that Furqan Clay rents out individually. Tenants share the kitchen and two bathrooms. That keeps the rent down to about $650 a month. This is a housing model that was ubiquitous in American cities a century ago, fell out of favor, and has only recently re-emerged as an object of interest. Last November, after a 75-year ban in most parts of the city, St. Louis re-opened its zoning map to SROs on a limited basis. 

One way for owners to approach this model is to partner with a homeless-service provider. That provider sends prospective tenants, helps to stabilize them, and initially covers their rent. Such a partnership, referred to by some as “transitional housing,” is what Furqan Clay is offering in Hyde Park. Known to her friends as “Landlord Barbie”—she posts on Instagram as @poshsheshe, a self-described “St. Louis girlie” interested in philanthropy, low-income housing, and pilates—Furqan Clay took over the 123-year-old building from her family a couple of years ago. It was vacant. She rehabbed it with the aim of housing veterans who needed a place to live. (Both her brothers are in the Navy.) She linked up with St. Patrick Center, a ministry of Catholic Charities. The nonprofit, which now has relationships with a handful of SRO landlords, inspected the property and began referring tenants. Its case managers frequently drop in, Furqan Clay says: “St. Patrick Center is there all the time.” 

One tenant the nonprofit sent her way was Redmon. He’s 60 years old. During his two-decade career in Army artillery units, he says, he got deployed to the Gulf War, saw “carnage” in Saudi Arabia, and now lives with post-traumatic stress. He was recently working part-time and sleeping in his Honda in the parking lot of a Walmart in North County, but people kept trying to break into it. Fed up, he called a hotline for homeless veterans. That led him to St. Patrick Center, which led him to Furqan Clay’s property. “It got me out of my car,” he says, perched on the edge of the couch in a shared living room scented by cigarette smoke. “[But] it still didn’t seem like I was calm, if that makes sense.” He says he easily moves into fight-or-flight mode when dealing with people. 

For example, several difficulties in his living space arose—the leak in his bedroom’s ceiling was a big one, a wasp infestation was another—and after he reported some of them over the phone to Furqan Clay, she responded sharply to him in a moment of stress, so he stopped calling her. But she called him back and apologized. “I’m like, Wait, this is a grown man,” she recalls. “Why am I talking like that? I said that I had to do better.” Redmon accepted her apology and says that she eventually fixed the leak; she says she will call an exterminator about the wasps.

But he also had frustrations with other vets living there—whether because they left a mess in the bathroom or had an overnight guest whom Redmon believed to be a sex worker. Throw in his own combative nature, he says, and you had a recipe for conflict. Furqan Clay ended up making two problematic tenants leave. (Jonathan Belcher, senior director of programs at St. Patrick Center, says that not all clients placed in housing have the same background and lifestyle, so when problems emerge, the nonprofit works with the clients and landlords to address those problems, and sometimes, to relocate people. “It’s not always right the 1st or 2nd time,” he says, “but we keep trying.”)

The more fundamental complaint by Redmon, though, has to do with a central feature of the SRO structure: that there’s an ever-evolving roster of tenants with whom he shares the common spaces, and he has no control over who moves in or out. (Two new tenants just moved in last week, so the dwelling is now full.) That’s the main reason he’s trying to get his own place. 

In one sense, he’s on the right track: The subsidized SRO gave him a place to stay while going through the time-consuming process of applying for disability benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. That not only resulted in a 100 percent disability rating but also allowed him to keep working, and he has landed a full-time job near the airport. But his jump in income also means that he can pay his entire rent, which means he’s exiting the St. Patrick Center’s program, while at the same time, his “bad rental history” has hobbled his quest for a new place. So he feels a bit stuck as he tries to find a way forward.

The transitional house that Furqan Clay has been running in Hyde Park for more than a year is only one example of SRO housing, true, but you could look at it as a sort of case study. Is an SRO necessarily something to fear? In this case, the police say that for the past two years, only one call for service—a wellbeing check—has come from the house’s address, and none have come from the adjacent one. It’s hard to tell what the neighbors think since most surrounding parcels are either empty lots or empty buildings. Furqan Clay says she loves working with St. Patrick Center, and is always learning and growing into her role as property manager. The model itself promises only to keep costs low for tenants; as others have observed, whether it runs smoothly depends on the specific humans and personalities involved. 

While Redmon isn’t ready to offer a glowing testimonial, he acknowledges it served a purpose in his life. The SRO model, he says, “works for some.” 

He adds, “I didn’t have to worry about where I was going to lay my head or whether somebody was going up in the car or whatever, so it did give me some peace. But it made me focus more on getting out of the situation.”