Common lodging-house

The new regulations required the landlords to limewash the walls and ceilings twice a year,[1] and mixed-sex accommodation (which was frequently a cover for a brothel) was abolished.

Lodging house residents worked at "menial tasks involved with building industrial plants and street railroads, paving streets, laying pipe and wire for gas and electric systems, and erecting new buildings" and working at "docks, warehouses, and factories".

To cope with this surge in demand, lodging "house keepers doubled up people in rooms and set more cots out into the hallways."

[5] A 1913 San Francisco health inspector's report on a 40-cents per night (the top end of the price range) lodging house described it as:[6] Three-story frame.

One fire escape; one stairway; large hall; four toilets; four baths; twelve stationary basins.

The lowest form of lodging house was the flophouse, which typically did not offer beds, providing instead "mattresses or piles of rags with a blanket", hammocks, or simply floor space (with the expectation that renters had their own bedroll).

[6] These rough conditions caused concern amongst reformers and activists, who got City Hall and police stations opened up as emergency lodging, an approach that served only a small percentage of the underhoused population.

[6] At municipal lodging houses, residents got an iron cot and two light meals if they agreed to "interrogation, fumigation, a shower, a promise of docile behavior, and often at least two hours a day chopping wood or cleaning alleys".

[5] In 1913, the Golden West Hotel was built in San Diego to provide low cost lodging for working men.

The Salvation Army opened its first mission in 1890s, soon rising to 44 locations across the US where low cost beds and food were available.