Posted on 09/05/2025 9:55:42 AM PDT by algore
It’s been two topsy-turvy years for Brownstone Shared Housing since the startup opened up its tiny bed “pods” for rent in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood — without the necessary permits — in 2023.
The startup’s 26 to 30-pod complex in Mint Plaza has withstood complaints from city officials, outlasted the threat of debilitating fees and, recently, avoided an eviction threat.
All the while, Brownstone has rented beds to a rotating cast of tech startup founders, immigrants and other new-to-the-city characters willing to stay in barely private, 4-foot-tall boxes for $700 a month.
And now, CEO James Stallworth is ramping up Brownstone’s ambitions.
He told SFGATE on Wednesday that the startup is close to leasing a new space not far from Mint Plaza, big enough for 100 pods.
But it would likely be the last building Brownstone runs itself — Stallworth also wants to shift to a franchise model, where San Francisco’s landlords would tap into his pool of applicants by converting their offices into space for pod housing. His goal is lofty in the extreme: 10,000 new pods downtown.
“We’re not doing this just, you know, for self-gratification,” Stallworth said. “Our goal is to create as much housing as people need.”
The franchise system, as Stallworth pitches it, would encourage landlords — particularly of lower-end commercial office space — to embrace office-to-housing conversions and quickly get people back into their vacant buildings.
Brownstone’s pods and furniture, can be set up in mere weeks. Permitting, as the startup has learned, is far slower.
Stallworth said he doubts most landlords would charge as little as $700 a month for the pods, but he added that his startup would use its applicants’ relatively low salaries to encourage landlords to set prices low and fill their beds.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
More power to them. If they want to build them and people want to rent them why not? They must have some pretty tight security to stop squatters and addicts from taking over.
Rape cubicles not good. Imagine busting your ass to buy a home in that hellhole and they move in a bunch of these nearby.
Room service?
Well, that’s just nuts. Let’s say it’s 1 AM. And the only thing between you and a crazy drug addict with a knife is a curtain?
Every neighbor is three feet away. Wonderful.
Looks like prison cells with curtains.
Are there any Tiny Homes in the area? Given land cost, if there are, I wonder what they cost.
Seems a good place to get killed.
Amnesty International would reject these accommodations.
Liberals would call these inhumane if they were jail cells, especially for illegals.
Anyone who thinks the solution to homelessness is putting the homeless into barracks doesn’t understand why they’re homeless.
Be a lot cheaper to get arrested every evening.
Probably get more room.
Every neighbor is three feet away. Wonderful.
correction... Every neighbor is three inches away. Wonderful.
“Looks like prison cells with curtains.”
Post of the day. Let’s hope the neighbors are better.
As a retired over-the-road truck driver, I lived in my truck 6-10 days at a time with more room than that and a lot more secure. I had a fridge, tv, ac/heat. No thank you to living in a cubicle, especially in a city like San Francisco.
The curtains are ridiculous. They need three feet in front and a solid wall and door, then they would be workable.
My house payment for 2,000 sq ft is $850.
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