It’s been no secret that San Francisco has been slow to add housing, so much so that the state of California has required the city to permit 86,000 homes by 2031, and those goals are not expected to be met.
That means many struggling families are trying to survive in single-room-occupancy hotels, some as small as 80 square feet.
The issue is explored in “Home Is a Hotel,” a 2023 documentary by Bay Area filmmaker Kevin Wong, who spent five years getting to know people who live in SROs. The film finally makes its broadcast premiere on KQED on Monday, May 11, and is available to stream on the PBS app in both the 58-minute broadcast version and 88-minute expanded edition.
Subjects include an immigrant single mom in Chinatown, a blind Latina librettist fighting harassment and eviction, a divorced couple in recovery co-parenting a 6-year-old son, a graffiti artist who paints murals for the tech companies, and a determined mother on a quest to find her runaway daughter.
The documentary won feature and audience awards at the 2023 San Francisco International Film Festival.
Wong told the Chronicle that not much has changed since then, policy-wise. The issue of housing security is systemic.
“Without structural change and a meaningful social safety net, SROs are always going to be the only option for the most vulnerable in our communities,” Wong said. “One elected official, administration or ballot measure is never going to be able to solve the issue on its own. We all need to rethink how we approach housing on every level — from subsidized and affordable to market rate.”