welfare hotel

American  

noun

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

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Etymology

Origin of welfare hotel

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

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

It is not trolling, Mr. Luthmann said, to set up phony Facebook pages to embarrass candidates — such as one in which a Republican Assembly candidate in a conservative district calls for more housing projects, or another, in which a liberal Democrat City Council member “welcomes” a welfare hotel for drug addicts and criminals.

From New York Times