Two councillors seek to ease process for ‘single

This property at 570 Warren St., managed by Commonwealth Land Trust, provides 26 single-room occupancy units for people struggling with addiction. Yawu Miller photo

Back in the 1990s, Roxbury residents pressured city officials to crack down on what many saw as a proliferation of rooming houses in the neighborhood, complaining that homes that once housed families and long-term residents were being replaced with rent-by-the-week rooms that attracted transients, prostitution, and drug dealing.

Thirty years later, prospective rooming house operators face a battery of regulatory hurdles that make it almost impossible to open such an establishment.

But, as the adage goes, what is old is new.

City Councillors Henry Santana and Liz Breadon last Wednesday (Oct. 22) filed a hearing order on sing