The word for this type of boarding is “flophouse.”

This is the type of place one might be “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Which carries a variety of potential meanings in this moment of AI.

Tangentially related: Mack and the boys lived in the “Palace Flophouse and Grill” in Cannery Row.

I suppose I must have looked up flophouse when reading all the Steinbeck I could get my hands on and it’s stuck w me.