When I moved to New York for a job, I spent over a month in an Airbnb while searching for more permanent accomodations. My roommates in the Airbnb were all in a similar situations, needing a place to stay for 1-6 months.

Without the Airbnb, where would we have gone? A hotel? But a hotel with a useable kitchen and good wifi would have been too expensive for any of us renting one of those rooms.

Historically, there was a type of lodging that seems almost perfectly suited to this situation: a boarding house. At least in my southern US city, the last of the ones here were legislated out of existence in the 80s and 90s as part of the war on drugs.

It's a pretty amazing pattern:

1. Poor people are living in crappy conditions in boarding houses.

2. We solve this problem by banning boarding houses.

3. Now poor people are living in the streets.

4. ...and we're OK with this! Best I can tell, it's because now there is now no landlord profiting on the poor!!

There are plenty of similar examples.

They are called apodments now.

Not sure if NY has this, but when I first moved to the bay area in 2004, I lived for three months in a studio apartment, in a building that catered to shorter-term stays, before finding something more permanent (I was on a 3-month contract and wasn't sure I'd be offered a full-time position). Chatting with the property managers, I learned that my use case was pretty common, as well as people only intending to stay in the area for a few months, as well as your use case of needing some time in the area before finding something more permanent. If we'd had Airbnb back then, it would have almost certainly cost 2-3x what this place cost.