Katie Rettig arrived in the Big Apple with two 50-pound suitcases, a job starting the next morning and no place to live. Furnished short-term rentals in Manhattan were running $5,000 a month. Then, on the 15th page of Google search results, she found a convent.

A few days later, Rettig was settling into a furnished room at the Sacred Heart Residence in the Chelsea neighborhood as a nun showed her around. The place was clean, the price was right and a hot dinner was on the table every night. She figured she could manage the 11 p.m. curfew with the nighttime events for her job at a whiskey company.