The lack of affordable housing is a nationwide issue.
No state is immune
Yet, some states face a larger challenge than others. According to various sources from U.S. News and World Report to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to World Population Review, the top five states with the highest number of homeless individuals are California, New York, Washington, Florida and Texas.
Interestingly, for a state not currently known for progressive ideas, Texas is effectively reducing its homelessness issue. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are harkening back to a form of shared housing we used to call a boarding or rooming house model. They were common in the U.S. until they began to fall out of fashion in the 1930s. Then zoning regulations and the housing boom in the 1950s further marginalized them.
Shared housing, like boarding houses, realized a brief resurgence, despite zoning rules limiting how many unrelated people could live under one roof, during the 1960s and 1970s counterculture era.
Today, Houston is reducing its homeless population through shared housing in single-family homes. Landlords are transforming rooms, like living rooms and family rooms, to create more bedrooms, putting locks on the doors and renting them out on a weekly basis with access to shared bathrooms and the kitchen.
A series of stories and opinion pieces in the New York Times highlighted how single-family homes in both middle-class and low-income neighborhoods are helping people find alternatives to sleeping in their cars or paying high rents.
How does it work?
Companies like PadSplit and Bungalow offer long-term room rentals in single-family homes. Some are listed as having seven or nine bedrooms with two or three bathrooms. PadSplit offers rooms by the week without a lease, making them more affordable. Bungalow ads show monthly room rates with what appear to be more shared living spaces but require a lease.
In some cases, the homes are managed by companies but owned by real estate developers. In others, individual homeowners have opted to live in the home with a variety of renters and defray their own living expenses.
Either option provides people with more affordable choices for finding housing in urban settings. That is good news, because according to AARP, 28 percent of households comprise one person living alone, but fewer than one percent of housing units are studios. For some, the idea of converting a large house to accommodate more people could be a wiser use of the space and provide much needed income.
If you are rambling around in a large home and wondering if it makes sense to look into how your home could be working for you, while helping to solve the affordable housing crisis, contact AplosGroup today. We’d love to discuss the design possibilities.