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October 3, 2024

By Dorothy Mazeau, 2024 Social Connectedness Fellow

Dorothy is a 2024 Research Fellow with over 20 years of experience living in shared homes. She has poured her passion for this lifestyle into founding Golden HomeSharing Connections, an organization dedicated to helping others discover the benefits of home-sharing and connect with compatible housemates. Dorothy also serves on the Board of Directors of Sharing Housing Inc., a non-profit committed to promoting home-sharing across North America. As an advocate for the cohousing movement, she has served on the boards of both the Cohousing Association of the United States and the Canadian Cohousing Network. Having lived in shared homes throughout her life, Dorothy is a strong proponent of aging-in-place and intergenerational connections. Her current research focuses on the Canada HomeShare program, which fosters affordable housing for older adults through intergenerational partnerships, addressing social isolation and building a sense of belonging.

Are you someone living alone in a big house filled with memories – and your kids’ stuff? Are you looking at the years ahead and wondering how long you can manage caring for the house – and yourself, for that matter — holding onto your goal of living the rest of your life in that house and in the community where you feel at home?

Speaking of those empty bedrooms did you know that in a study by the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, the authors studied what they call “Housing Suitability”? They make the assumption that a “suitably-sized home” has as many residents as there are bedrooms in the home. They found that there are over 5 million spare bedrooms in Ontario alone, which represents 25 years of housing supply, at current construction rates.

The math is fascinating, but when considering who occupies these “over-housed” homes, a substantial number may well be seniors like you, living alone in the family home you have owned for years and have no desire to leave. The mathematicians cannot expect you to move to make their calculations work. However, this does illuminate a possible solution to the issues of loneliness and housing affordability; Home-Sharing.

The idea of sharing your home with other people may seem daunting, but those I have personally interviewed who took the leap – thoughtfully and intentionally – have shared very encouraging stories. One home-sharer reflected:

“[Before home-sharing] the only people I ever talked to were store clerks. Now I’m chatting every day and there’s nothing more wonderful than a hug from my home-mate!”

Another shared:

“Suddenly, [we’re] sitting at Sunday dinner laughing, you know? And what that’s meant to [our] sense of well-being and probably [our] physical health!”

Health is also a theme for another woman, who along with three others she met through a Facebook Home-Sharing Group, moved in together five years ago:

“We all moved in in really good health. And then one of us wasn’t anymore.  Now she’s going to get better, but we pitched in and helped her . . . And her family have said, I don’t know how many times, ‘We’re so grateful that you were there for her, because we couldn’t have helped . . .”

Safety was another concern for one home-sharer:  

“Safety was a big concern. Just that I didn’t want my family to have to be checking on me all the time and worrying . . . So that was a concern, more that I didn’t want my family to be worried than, you know, a concern for my own safety.”

While these stories emphasize the emotional and social benefits, there are also financial advantages of home-sharing. It can help with the homeowner’s ongoing costs for taxes, insurance, utilities, and home maintenance and in help the sharer who is pushed out of the rental market by the exorbitant rents being charged and the low vacancy rate.

It’s not just the home-sharers who benefit financially; Governments can benefit too. The Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis should be retained to conduct a study on how much each home-sharer saves the government in terms of:

  • Minor home renovation costs to facilitate home-sharing, versus new construction costs.
  • Professional in-home care, supplemented by loving friends, versus a long-term care bed.
  • Affordable rent paid to a homeowner versus public rental subsidies to maintain rent at 30% of the renter’s income.
  • Fostering a sense of belonging versus the cost of treating illnesses linked to loneliness.

Governments could go a long way in supporting home-sharing, through funding the agencies that facilitate home-sharing and by creating tax benefits for home-sharers that reflect the value they are providing to the community. Furthermore, legislation that codifies home-sharing, as distinct from both Family Law and Landlord/Tenant Law, would protect all parties to a home-share agreement.

The fact remains that the goodwill inherent in a successful home-share means that the home-share agreement they have carefully crafted can gather dust on the shelf while the home-sharers sort through issues that inevitably arise over the course of their life together—just as they do in any family! You don’t get to choose your birth family, but home-sharers choose each other and create a family of friends.

Resources are available to help you along the path to creating a successful home-share, whether through an agency specializing in the home-sharing field, or by educating yourself through books, workshops and coaching that are available online across North America.

So, take heart and take the first step. Help is available and once you’ve started on the journey, exciting possibilities will present themselves to you. As Connor Timmons, Executive Director of HomeShare Vermont, said in my interview with him, “Don’t do it because you need it, do it because it’s fun!”

References

The Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA). (2017, November 23). Understanding the Forces Driving the Shelter Affordability Issue: A Linked-path Assessment. CANCEA. Retrieved from https://www.cancea.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Understanding-the-Forces-Driving-the-Shelter-Affordability-Issue-A-Linked-path-Assessment.pdf