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The History Of Single Room Occupancy Hotels In Seattle's Chinatown International District

Courtesy Marie Wong
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Residential hotels once filled a crucial niche for low-income workers and immigrants, a bridge between affordable housing and a shelter.

These Single Room Occupancy hotels, or SROs, used to dominate the streetscape in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. Now they’re nearly extinct.

It’s a story that caught the attention of Marie Wong, an Associate Professor at Seattle University. It appealed to her background in urban planning, but also to her background as a Chinese American growing up in the Midwest.

Kevin began his career at KNKX in 2003, where his first responsibility was to eradicate the KNKX Jazz Library from all Smooth Jazz CD’s. Since then there is not much at KNKX he hasn’t done. Kevin has worked as a full time jazz host, news host, and has hosted, at least once, almost every single program on KNKX. Kevin currently produces 88.5's weekly show Sound Effect. Kevin has conducted or produced hundreds of interviews, has won local and national awards for newscasts and commentary, and helped make the KNKX Grocery Tote famous.
Gabriel Spitzer is a former KNKX reporter, producer and host who covered science and health and worked on the show Sound Effect.