Consider what we tolerate in the current status quo to weigh whether a tenement is a bad thing, where 90k people live in the streets of LA without running water in a pandemic, ironically camping along surface lots that used to be low cost motels with rooms for rent all over downtown LA, razed in the 70s to make parking for office workers living in the suburbs.

Consider that tenements also haven't gone away, and sometimes several family units are packed into a single 1br apartment in LA or in other high COL places as we speak. I've seen bunks for rent that look like they came out of a prison on my local craigslist, asking for $500 a month.

Cheap and communal housing would solve so many ills that currently exist for the working class simply because we refuse to build this sort of housing anymore. Housing that used to dominate cities like LA and gave opportunity to the working poor who couldn't afford a better situation. Housing that we sorely lack, and the lack of which push people into real tenement conditions today, or even on the street, while they work part or full time trying to make ends meet.