House-Sharing Aids Budget, Chases Loneliness
Jack and Ann O’Connell feel much more secure and Janice Collins can afford a car while she is saving to buy a house of her own because she shares the O’Connells’ big, comfortable home.
“It’s not a hardship, it’s a convenience,” said Jack O’Connell, who is 77. “You can leave your cats and go on a trip and Jan will take care of them.
“Besides, in this neighborhood, if you leave a house empty it’ll be really empty when you come back.”
It’s an irony of modern life that people who spent decades paying for a house are finding it is too much to handle after the kids are gone. Others must spend huge chunks of their incomes for a nice place, or pay less and live in a dump.
Community groups around the country have an answer: sharing housing, as individuals or groups. There were 50 such programs in the United States in 1981; now there are more than 400 in 42 states, according to the Shared Housing Resource Center, an 8-year-old, Philadelphia-based organization.
Boarders Are Back
It’s an idea whose time has gone and come back. American homeowners rented out rooms through the beginning of this century, before government programs, zoning laws and the postwar building boom.
The first “match-up” program for individuals in the United States was Project Homeshare, started in 1953 in Hartford, Conn. The oldest American shared residence program for groups is Share-a-Home, founded in 1969 in Winter Park, Fla.
Anyone can hang a “Room for Rent” sign in the window, but people who consult a match-up program want the service to screen applicants and keep tabs on the situation.
“I would be afraid to advertise in the newspapers because I wouldn’t know what I was getting,” a 74-year-old widow told consultant Carol S. Schreter of Baltimore.
“Working with the public 40 years, you learn to size people up,” one disabled client said, “but I wouldn’t interview strangers in my home.”
Rent Beats Apartments
Janice Collins, 40, a business student at La Salle University, looked at apartments in the Germantown neighborhood priced at $400 to $500 a month before she was “matched” with the O’Connells. She pays $175 a month for the third floor of their house.
“I have a very tight budget, but I’m saving for my own home. I couldn’t do that and afford my car if I had to pay that kind of rent.”
Collins moved in in 1986. In 1987, she did more than feed the cats. Ann O’Connell suffered a heart attack. She said: “Jan drove me to the hospital. We got there right away, and it sure was better than waiting for an ambulance.”
Philadelphia Match, a nonprofit service, screens both prospective house mates and landlords. “It’s not for everyone,” said Susan Levin, director of the group’s Delaware Valley Division. The agency rejects applicants who can’t pay or work for their rent, those who need extensive medical care or require supervision or medication, heavy drinkers, drug abusers and people seeking emergency shelter.
“(Screening agents) can make a thorough investigation on both sides and ask a whole lot of insulting questions, because they’re not going to have to live with you afterward,” O’Connell said.
Tenants and owners both pay a $5 application fee and $25 fee for the matching service. Commercial “finders” who locate apartments for people often charge much more. Philadelphia Match recommends a two-week trial before the parties negotiate and sign a lease. Rent can be paid as money or a combination of cash and services.
Then there are group households, in which an average of eight people rent housing from a community organization.
Earlier this year, Philadelphia Match opened St. George’s Manor, a 103-year-old church rectory remodeled into six bedrooms and a kitchen, living room and bathrooms. A resident must be at least 62 years old or disabled, and must have an annual income of less than $12,800.
The government-subsidized rent is 30% of each resident’s income. The Shared Housing Resource Center estimates the average cost per unit in a group residence at $6,250, a bargain next to other forms of housing.
A 1984 survey found the mean age of owners to be 68, and that about half of them were paying more than 40% of their incomes for housing. The mean age of house mates was 50, and many were middle-class workers who were between jobs or at the end of a marriage.
The main advantage cited by the homeowners was financial help, closely followed by companionship. Saving money was the attraction for two-thirds of the renters.
In group households, financial advantage was a relatively minor factor. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said “having somebody around” in case of an emergency or to help with chores was what they liked best, and 20% saw the main advantage as safety in numbers, or security.
Household Peeves
Among the disadvantages, household management issues topped the list with both owners and tenants. These included thermostat settings, kitchen duties and noise at odd hours.
In group households, personality clashes were cited most often--arguments, too much talking, criticism, etc. Privacy was less of a problem; in fact, 45% of those polled said they felt no loss of privacy.
“You can shut your door with non-relatives,” one agency client said. “They don’t need to know where you are going. They don’t get so involved in your affairs.”
Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Grey Panthers, has been sharing her house for years. She says it creates a “family of choice.”
“I have never regretted it. Shared housing makes loneliness obsolescent.”
