welfare hotel

noun

1. a hotel in which people receiving welfare assistance are temporarily housed until permanent quarters become available.

Word History and Origins

Origin of welfare hotel¹

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

The arc of West Indian Archie, where at the end you are broken and vulnerable and sitting in the room of a welfare hotel, unable to move because of a stroke, was so powerful and riveting.

From Salon

“The lobby was so dingy it looked like a welfare hotel,” Trump wrote in his book The Art of the Deal.

From The Guardian

“The lobby was so dingy it looked like a welfare hotel,” he wrote in “The Art of the Deal,” but then his eye caught a hopeful sign.

From Seattle Times

That page, among other things, said Ms. Rose “welcomes” a welfare hotel for drug addicts and criminals.

From New York Times

In it, he passes along a post from a sham Facebook page set up in the name of her opponent, City Councilwoman Deborah Rose, inviting people to support her “partnership” with a real estate developer to turn a property into an “SRO Welfare Hotel full of Criminals.”

From New York Times