I'll just add that, to the potential roommates, you have a lot to gain as well! I rented a spare room from an older lady during a summer internship. Her screening criteria was simple - you had to go to church every Sunday. Once a week I'd go downstairs to do laundry (she lived in the basement), and we'd sit around her dining room table talking for hours until the dryer stopped, and sometimes longer. Those conversations are the only thing I remember from that summer.
My experiences on the host end have been more challenging, mostly because of East/West cultural differences that inevitably come to the surface. My in-laws typically stay with us for months at a time, and were raised in a culture in which extended families live together and have an assembly of family roles based on gender. As a result, I have to (mostly) assert and (occasionally) compromise my roles as a co-parent and co-homemaker with my mother-in-law. This isn't an insurmountable problem; it's more just to say that you learn a lot about yourself and what you believe when you invite people into your home for a long period of time. That's mostly a good thing.
The trends toward larger home sizes and smaller household sizes mean that there is much more housing space available if people would be willing to follow this path. As the author points out, it would also free up additional housing options as people leave their current homes to move into shared housing. Another plus: existing utility infrastructure can more easily accommodate shared housing than new construction. My state has mandated that cities develop housing production strategies to meet targeted goals for needed new housing, but incentivizing and reducing barriers to the YIMSR strategy is probably not something that would occur to many jurisdictions, even though the net gains could be considerable and the costs minimal. I appreciate the idea of local guidance on construction/conversion. This could become a niche market, especially in areas where permitting and development fees are streamlined to encourage this approach. Thank you for sharing this essay.
In my neighborhood (working class, former streetcar suburb), more than 5% of houses have boarders or lodgers. Some in a room, others in an RV plugged into the house's external outlet.
The RV is the modern version of the sunporch, which was formerly a favorite location for boarders.
We are currently renting our spare room to a young lady who is in the process of selling her childhood home. She’s been with us about two months and it will probably be several more months. Eventually she would like to find work in a big city. We’ve known her for several years and she goes to the same church as we do. Another family in our church has had young people board with them as a transition from home to living on their own. Eventually we would like to have the spare room on offer to overseas workers sponsored by our church when they come home on furlough. My husband’s family has taken in friends who were dying of cancer who would have otherwise died alone. We know of another family in our town that has rented out a trailer/RV on their property as a sort of transitional housing for a young person getting sober. The examples set us by family and friends gave us the vision and courage to rent our spare room and it’s gone really well. Another factor that made me open to sharing our home is the simple fact that with my BA in humanities, I wouldn’t be able to afford a house by myself!
I've had this idea on my heart for as long as we've been homeowners, especially since I reaped the benefits of living with an older woman from church for 7+ years before getting married. However, the biggest reason we haven't been able to make this a reality in our house is autistic overstimulation. In the household there are 2-3 people on the spectrum, and overnight anybody takes days to recover from. Hopefully our more neurotypical neighbors can start to make YIMSR a reality!
I do agree! Our family of four recently hosted an aspiring Olympic swimmer who trained with our local team. Initially, we planned to host her for 3 months—and we kept extending it as it worked so well, for a total of 15 months. It was great for all of us: our kids had another young adult in the house, who shared their interest in swimming. We had a built-in house and cat sitter when we traveled, and our guest benefitted from having us mature adults around when things came up, like her car broke down.
I’d do it again—but my main concern would be with making sure we could get even a well-fitting guest out when we needed our spare room back. I’ve heard multiple horror stories here in California of people taking in people like Russ and then not being able to get them to leave short of doing a formal eviction proceeding. So maybe one thing policy could do is clarify the at-will nature of these arrangements and to ensure that the home owner can get the guest to leave with reasonable 30 day notice, without cause and without normal eviction protections.
Not everyone wants to live pressed up against his neighbor. Consider Abraham and Lot. Even the homeless decline shelters because they don't want to deal (even temporarily) with propinquity and its consequences.
I'll just add that, to the potential roommates, you have a lot to gain as well! I rented a spare room from an older lady during a summer internship. Her screening criteria was simple - you had to go to church every Sunday. Once a week I'd go downstairs to do laundry (she lived in the basement), and we'd sit around her dining room table talking for hours until the dryer stopped, and sometimes longer. Those conversations are the only thing I remember from that summer.
My experiences on the host end have been more challenging, mostly because of East/West cultural differences that inevitably come to the surface. My in-laws typically stay with us for months at a time, and were raised in a culture in which extended families live together and have an assembly of family roles based on gender. As a result, I have to (mostly) assert and (occasionally) compromise my roles as a co-parent and co-homemaker with my mother-in-law. This isn't an insurmountable problem; it's more just to say that you learn a lot about yourself and what you believe when you invite people into your home for a long period of time. That's mostly a good thing.
The trends toward larger home sizes and smaller household sizes mean that there is much more housing space available if people would be willing to follow this path. As the author points out, it would also free up additional housing options as people leave their current homes to move into shared housing. Another plus: existing utility infrastructure can more easily accommodate shared housing than new construction. My state has mandated that cities develop housing production strategies to meet targeted goals for needed new housing, but incentivizing and reducing barriers to the YIMSR strategy is probably not something that would occur to many jurisdictions, even though the net gains could be considerable and the costs minimal. I appreciate the idea of local guidance on construction/conversion. This could become a niche market, especially in areas where permitting and development fees are streamlined to encourage this approach. Thank you for sharing this essay.
In my neighborhood (working class, former streetcar suburb), more than 5% of houses have boarders or lodgers. Some in a room, others in an RV plugged into the house's external outlet.
The RV is the modern version of the sunporch, which was formerly a favorite location for boarders.
Thanks for writing this essay. [Edit: I missed the header: thanks for posting this essay!]
We are currently renting our spare room to a young lady who is in the process of selling her childhood home. She’s been with us about two months and it will probably be several more months. Eventually she would like to find work in a big city. We’ve known her for several years and she goes to the same church as we do. Another family in our church has had young people board with them as a transition from home to living on their own. Eventually we would like to have the spare room on offer to overseas workers sponsored by our church when they come home on furlough. My husband’s family has taken in friends who were dying of cancer who would have otherwise died alone. We know of another family in our town that has rented out a trailer/RV on their property as a sort of transitional housing for a young person getting sober. The examples set us by family and friends gave us the vision and courage to rent our spare room and it’s gone really well. Another factor that made me open to sharing our home is the simple fact that with my BA in humanities, I wouldn’t be able to afford a house by myself!
This is awesome
I've had this idea on my heart for as long as we've been homeowners, especially since I reaped the benefits of living with an older woman from church for 7+ years before getting married. However, the biggest reason we haven't been able to make this a reality in our house is autistic overstimulation. In the household there are 2-3 people on the spectrum, and overnight anybody takes days to recover from. Hopefully our more neurotypical neighbors can start to make YIMSR a reality!
I do agree! Our family of four recently hosted an aspiring Olympic swimmer who trained with our local team. Initially, we planned to host her for 3 months—and we kept extending it as it worked so well, for a total of 15 months. It was great for all of us: our kids had another young adult in the house, who shared their interest in swimming. We had a built-in house and cat sitter when we traveled, and our guest benefitted from having us mature adults around when things came up, like her car broke down.
I’d do it again—but my main concern would be with making sure we could get even a well-fitting guest out when we needed our spare room back. I’ve heard multiple horror stories here in California of people taking in people like Russ and then not being able to get them to leave short of doing a formal eviction proceeding. So maybe one thing policy could do is clarify the at-will nature of these arrangements and to ensure that the home owner can get the guest to leave with reasonable 30 day notice, without cause and without normal eviction protections.
I did this for 15 years as a single adult. Might consider again as newer ‘open window’ family
This is a great idea! You could even make an app to facilitate this called AirBnB, Vacasa or even Vrbo. Oh, wait...
Yeah, tons of people are doing this already, bro.
Not everyone wants to live pressed up against his neighbor. Consider Abraham and Lot. Even the homeless decline shelters because they don't want to deal (even temporarily) with propinquity and its consequences.