As housing costs rise across the country, it’s worth looking into what was used in the past to address housing shortages. It used to be popular to rent small, furnished rooms in residential buildings by the week or month. Residents typically shared kitchens and bathrooms. This arrangement, called single-room occupancy, made up a sizable portion of housing in major cities into the middle of the 20th century.

But beginning in the 1950s, some residents and politicians led a push against SROs, decrying the buildings as urban blight. Cities began outlawing SRO buildings through building codes and zoning laws. Nationwide, millions of SRO units were lost, the buildings demolished as part of urban renewal efforts, or converted to other uses.

The SRO concept has survived in small numbers, though, used mostly by organizations dedicated to addressing homelessness. In DC, the local nonprofit SOME owns about 700 SRO and efficiency units, for example.

As the need for affordable housing grows, SRO-like accommodations are reappearing in DC and elsewhere, but they look a lot different than they did a century ago: PadSplit uses membership agreements, not leases, for renters so they can rent by the week instead of month or year-long agreements typical of leases. Cohabs has shared amenities, including laundry rooms and gyms, for multiple six-person units (the maximum number of unrelated renters allowed per single-family home in DC) to share.

While not explicitly banned in DC, a combination of building codes (SRO bedroom sizes must be 95 square feet; the building must have a 24-hour security system), high land costs and zoning restrictions (cannot be built in areas zones for single-family homes) prevent the economics of operating an SRO building from making sense.

While I don’t have the solutions, the success of private companies offering affordable rooms suggests that the demand is there. It would be wise for DC to encourage more SRO and SRO-type buildings, whether that’s with additional subsidies for SROs, looser zoning restrictions, or rolling back unnecessary building codes.

Renting by the room

Two companies, Cohabs and Padsplit, are beginning to fill in the affordability gap with SRO-like housing options.

Cohabs’ offerings resemble group houses, with furnished rooms rented out individually on leases of at least three months. The company currently operates one house in Columbia Heights and another on Capitol Hill, with plans to expand to LeDroit Park and Logan Circle later this year.

The Columbia Heights house was originally two rowhomes that were combined into one, plus an addition on top. In the house, there are 36 bedrooms, nineteen bathrooms, and two kitchens, plus other amenities including a gym and coworking space.

According to Cohabs’ DC City Manager, Jessica Liu, the typical lease is six months and the average age of tenants is 28. Nearly three-quarters of the Columbia Heights house residents are international and many of the tenants are interns, graduate students, or digital nomads. Some use the house as a way to meet other people or explore the city before moving on.

“Sometimes in the group chat you’ll see, ‘It’s a nice day, does anyone want to walk to Georgetown?’” Lui said of the Cohabs Whatsapp group.

DC’s large international population was one of the draws for Cohabs, along with the city’s young and transient residents, according to James Grasso, the company’s head of real estate. The company was originally founded in Europe and now operates 23 houses in New York City. DC is the company’s second US market.

Cohabs aren’t exactly cheap. In DC, a room with a private bathroom is about $1,600 a month on average — cheaper than an apartment in the same neighborhood, but closer to group house pricing than to that of a traditional SRO.

A more affordable option is PadSplit. Similar to Cohabs, PadSplit rents furnished bedrooms by the room. PadSplit homes typically turn non-bedrooms — think living rooms or dens — into bedrooms using temporary walls. Nationally speaking, PadSplit homes can house seven to eight people in a four bedroom.

Unlike Cohabs, PadSplit does not own the homes. The platform connects people looking for housing to homeowners, who furnish and manage the houses. Those living in a PadSplit home are technically not tenants, since there is no lease. Instead, they sign a PadSplit membership agreement.

PadSplit is priced to be 50% to 60% of a local studio apartment: Currently, a room in a Columbia Heights house is about $1,000 per month, plus move-in and membership fees. Utilities, including WiFi, are included. While PadSplit can suggest the pricing, the host has the ultimate say.

Unlike traditional landlords, PadSplit doesn’t require a security deposit or a minimum credit score. The company uses income verification to approve an applicant. Successful applicants cannot have more than two evictions on their record in the past seven years, or any felony convictions.

While PadSplit doesn’t target any type of demographic, PadSplit members tend to be blue-collar workers making between $20,000 and $60,000 a year, according to Andrew Mackler, the company’s head of market launch. The most common employers of DC members are Amazon, public schools, the federal government, and George Washington University.

Not signing a lease gives members more flexibility: Most members stay within the PadSplit system for about eight to nine months, and often move between homes. In some cases, members will move into one home while they wait for a room in another to open up.

Marcus Barnes, a PadSplit owner in DC, Maryland, and Atlanta, said he has to spend time making properties “PadSplit ready” — adding walls and furnishing the bedrooms. But once a home has been converted, he says he makes more money with a PadSplit than he did previously renting to a traditional tenant.

Pushback and safety concerns

As with SROs, PadSplit homes are not always welcome. Neighbors of an Atlanta PadSplit that was illegally operating in a single-family neighborhood complained to the county last year. Mackler said most pushback from neighbors is related to trash, house upkeep, cars, or other quality of life issues.

Some members have had trouble with PadSplit arrangements. One member in Houston found unsanitary conditions and a stranger accessing her room before a journalist contacted the company’s CEO and she was able to transfer to a new house. Another in Atlanta had to get a protection order from police before PadSplit agreed to remove a man who was making unwelcome advances and peeping in her window.

These negative experiences highlight some of the real safety concerns that can come with affordable rooms offered in this way. Barnes said that in the three to four years he has been a PadSplit host, he has only had to evict one person. According to the company, about 1% of PadSplit members are evicted. The company will try to work with members before pursuing an eviction.

Demand highlights unmet need

PadSplit is growing, hitting 20,000 units earlier this year, proving the country’s need for affordable housing is still unmet. By expanding not just the number of housing units but also the types of housing units available, cities like DC can be better suited to meet the various needs of current and future residents.

While SROs are not explicitly discouraged, there is still a disconnect between the demand for SRO buildings and the supply in urban areas. Until SRO buildings are welcome through zoning laws and building codes, private companies will continue to find workarounds, creating their own SRO-like options to meet the demand.

Top image: PadSplit and Cohabs are two companies offering rooms in Columbia Heights. Image by Mike Maguire licensed under Creative Commons.

Comment on this article

I’m not saying this will definitely happen, but I think we could be on the cusp of a significant shift in Windows market share for consumer computers. It is not going to drop to 2% in a year or anything, but I feel like a few pieces are coming together that could move the needle in a way we have not seen in several decades. There are three things on my mind .

Number one is that Microsoft just does not feel like a consumer tech company at all anymore. Yes, they have always been much more corporate than the likes of Apple or Google, but it really shows in the last few years as they seem to only have energy for AI and web services. If you are not a customer who is a major business or a developer creating the next AI-powered app, Microsoft does not seem to care about you.

I just do not see excitement there. The only thing of note they have added to Windows in the last five years is Copilot, and I have yet to meet a normal human being who enjoys using it. And all the Windows 11 changes seem to have just gone over about as well as a lead balloon. I just do not think they care at all about Windows with consumers.

The second thing is the affordable MacBook rumored to be coming out in 2026. This will be a meaningfully cheaper MacBook that people can purchase at price points that many Windows computers have been hovering around for many years. Considering Apple’s focus on consumers first and a price point that can get more people in the door, it seems like that could move the needle.

The third thing is gamers. Gamers use Windows largely because they have to, not because they are passionate about it. Maybe they were passionate about it in the 90s, but any passion has gone away. Now it is just the operating system they use to launch Steam. In early 2026, Valve is going to release the Steam Machine after a few years of success with the Steam Deck. We will see how they do there, but what they are doing is releasing a machine that runs Windows games on Linux. And it runs them really well. The Steam Deck has proven that over the last few years. If someone can package up a version of Linux that is optimized for gamers, then I think there is a meaningful number of PC gamers who would happily run that on their computer instead.

I do not know if this is going to happen. It is always easy to be cynical and suggest everything will stay the same, and I understand that markets of this size take a long time to change. However, it just feels like there are some things happening right now that are going to move the needle, and I am excited to see what happens.

Ryan Lizza on discovering that his now-ex was having a sexual relationship with old guy running a marginal presidential campaign even though he was the subject of profile and an ongoing source for their proposed campaign book:

“If I swallowed every drop of water from the tower above your house,” Olivia had written, “I would still thirst for you.”

Unfortunately, the lack of a water tower on our Georgetown home’s roof ruled me out as the note’s intended recipient.

I flipped to another page and saw a name and the first line of an unfinished love letter to him that included enough details to confirm a physical relationship and the hint of some kind of falling out.

My heart stopped when I realized who he was.

He was a famous politician, 32 years older than Olivia, and well-known for a sex scandal. But more importantly, he was a presidential candidate, a source, and the subject of Olivia’s recent profile for New York.

I started to build a mental map of the potential blast zone, ticking through the concentric circles of our lives that her recklessness could shatter: the privacy of my children, the wedding Olivia was pressuring me to plan, her journalism career, our book project.

I was not a perfect partner, but the scale of Olivia’s betrayal was devastating. She had an affair with someone who would provide the maximum level of humiliation and personal and professional ruin, perhaps for both of us.

She later explained to me that she became “infatuated” with him after their interview, that she couldn’t get him out of her head, and that as her obsession intensified, she sent him increasingly risqué pictures and texts, secretly followed him on the campaign trail when she told me she was out covering other candidates, and fantasized about a rendezvous, which was consummated at his home in South Carolina one night after she went dark on me and made up a story about how she was dealing with a crisis concerning her sick mother.

I was sure our relationship was over. And certainly our book project was dead. She had crossed a journalistic red line. How could we write a book about the presidential campaign if Olivia had a sexual relationship with one of the candidates?

I looked at the date on her aborted letter to “Mark”: March 5, 2020—just a few days ago.

I called my agent.

“We have a big problem,” I said. “Olivia is sleeping with Mark Sanford.”

Well, at least we know she didn’t do it for the money.

So, one of the ethical questions we’re now dealing with “how many article subjects seeking political power can you have a sexual relationship with without disclosing it and still keep your lucrative sinecure at Conde Nast?” The fact that “one” isn’t enough is depressing enough. Oh, I’m guessing we’ll be hearing more about this:

 She orchestrated a plot with the help of a senior Trump official to try to have me imprisoned, and now she’s written what appears to be a largely fictitious and self-serving account about it all.

This sequel to Eyes Wide Shut is becoming increasingly implausible.

The post Dispatches from the Appalachian Trail appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Washington, DC, is running out of homes that middle-income families can afford to buy. Homeownership has plunged from 47.5% in 2007 to just 40% today even as thousands of new apartment units, almost exclusively rentals, have been built in neighborhoods like NoMa and Navy Yard.

These outcomes are the natural, albeit perhaps unintended, consequences of the District’s land use policies. For decades, exclusionary zoning has blocked smaller, moderately priced homes from being built. As a result, options have dwindled for working and middle-class families who want to own a home.

The District’s elected and appointed officials have a rare chance to change course. As they steward a rewrite of its Comprehensive Plan, which will govern what is allowed to be built where over the next 25 years, it should legalize “light-touch density.” That means allowing any owner of a single-family detached home to, should they wish, convert them into duplexes, triplexes, or townhomes, provided that each parcel meets a minimum lot size.

This isn’t radical. A century ago, American neighborhoods featured a mix of different sizes and types of homes. That changed in the 1920s, when federal guidance and a Supreme Court ruling upheld exclusionary zoning practices that segregated real estate by price point and, indirectly, by race. Cities quickly banned what we now refer to as “missing middle” housing from most neighborhoods and increasingly gave private groups veto power over new construction. The result was higher prices, less diversity, and more McMansions.

Allowing light-touch density would help to reverse the negative trends brought about by exclusionary zoning. If existing lots were allowed to contain more than one home, neighborhoods like the Palisades, Michigan Park, Takoma, and Hillcrest—by using land more efficiently—could accommodate more residents while remaining low-rise and residential.

In high-demand cities like DC, land appreciates while buildings depreciate. As a result, market forces incentivize redevelopment. If zoning permits only one large home, you get a $4 million McMansion. If zoning allowed light-touch density, the same land could support four to eight moderately sized homes instead. In DC, these would sell for roughly 75 percent of the price of the home they replaced—not cheap, but attainable for middle-income buyers. Many would serve as “starter homes,” the kind of family-sized, lower-cost options that are increasingly scarce.

And new, moderately priced homes free up older housing. This process, known as filtering, means that building new homes doesn’t just help new buyers—it helps renters and lower-income families too.

By our estimates, allowing light-touch density could enable 800–1,100 homes to be built in the District annually, six times the past decade’s single-family pace. Crucially, these would mostly be for-sale units, with ownership rates around 80 percent, far above the sub-10% ownership rate typical of new multifamily buildings.

The neighborhoods most suited for light-touch density are those most at risk of McMansionization: Chevy Chase, Forest Hills, and American University Park. They have large lots, aging homes, and high land values. Without reform to the District’s land-use policies, these areas will see ever-larger luxury homes that only single wealthy households will occupy. With light-touch density regulations in place, they could welcome multiple families at moderate price points to high-opportunity neighborhoods with strong schools, good transit, and stable property values.

Most buyers of these homes will be District residents; most of them will be young families, first-time buyers, and people of color. These are the groups getting shut out of these neighborhoods today. Legalizing light-touch density would expand housing choices and help build a more inclusive and equitable city.

Some may fear that light-touch density will hurt neighborhood character or property values. But evidence from cities like Seattle or Charlotte show modest density increases have no measurable effect on surrounding prices. New units would match the scale of existing homes, and new residents would largely be middle-class households. Parking and traffic concerns can be addressed through market tools like priced curbside parking. And unlike large apartment buildings, light-touch density would fill in incrementally over time, preserving community continuity.

We recently released a report proposing light-touch density reforms for DC, outlining their housing supply potential and broader benefits. For current homeowners, it would enable them to partner with small builders to redevelop their lot, keep a unit and downsize, create housing for adult children or aging parents, or simply unlock wealth without leaving the neighborhood.

The fiscal upside is substantial. According to our calculations, over ten years, homes built as a result of legalizing light-touch density could generate about $1.2 billion in recurring property, income, and sales taxes for the District—without subsidies. That’s revenue that could be reinvested in infrastructure, schools, or lowering taxes for everyone.

But the details matter. Conversions must be allowed by right, with simple, clear rules—no permit caps and no excessive affordability mandates that make projects unworkable. The District should further improve its zoning code to be small-lot friendly, reduce parking minimums, and offer pre-approved design templates to speed permitting. Neighboring Arlington and Montgomery counties are cautionary tales: Both passed light-touch density-style reforms, but blunted them with strict limits and costly requirements.

Politically, the challenge is that neighborhoods that are prime candidates for light-touch density have long resisted change and are politically powerful enough to continue to do so. Still, the alternative is more McMansions, rising prices, and falling rates of homeownership. Once a lot becomes a single high-cost home, it’s locked in for decades—and once the Comp Plan rewrite is finalized, there won’t be another opportunity to legalize light-touch density for over a decade. Successful reforms in Portland and Austin prove that it can be done.

Light-touch density alone will not solve DC’s housing crisis. But it will increase ownership opportunities, support the middle class, promote a more equitable city, and better align market incentives with public goals. In an era of fiscal strain for the District, it will also more than pay for itself. The District should make light-touch density one of the pillars of its new Comprehensive Plan.

Top image: A satellite view of the intersection of 38th and Albemarle streets NW. It looks all single-family, but, behold the duplexes in between (highlighted). Image by Google Maps and AEI Housing Center.

Comment on this article