It's interesting that the view was "you've got 5 years to find yourself a husband". I suspect the entire concept was insanely progressive at the time -- a girl who moves away from her father and lives independently?!

I guess there must be different rules for "boarding houses" as normally you'd have all kinds of trouble if you restricted housing based on age, marital status, and gender.

It's possibly a contributing factor to the housing crisis that very few places like this still exist. It seems to be a more affordable way to live than to have to rent a fully isolated studio or 1-bedroom apartment as a single person and have to shop for food and prepare meals.

Chicago still has a Men's Hotel similar to this, https://newrepublic.com/article/161808/ewing-annex-hotel-hou... though I think it is more focused on transient laborers and semi-homeless men then young people just starting out their professional life.

Looks much seedier than the Webster. I agree they are not catering to the same type of resident, gender notwithstanding. The Ewing seems to be a last resort for someone to not be homeless.

The key here is its non profit. That’s the limitation - due to the cost of land there’s no way you can commercially offer the service because prices increase to capture all the wages due to the lack of housing.