'Homesharing' to help make ends meet
The recent story about older, unemployed workers in financial straits got me thinking of St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center's "Homesharing" program, which matches homeowners with room to spare and people needing a room to rent. I blogged about the effort a few years back, when the recession was just getting going. Have more homeowners needing income and renters needing cheaper digs connected since?
Before I could pick up the phone to ask, program director Annette Leahy Maggitti emailed to say that this is just what's happening. (She's not clairvoyant -- she read the older-worker story.)
"It has been a steady increase in matches," she said. "FY2008 we made 49 matches. FY2009 we made 78. In FY2010, 102."
One trend Maggitti is seeing: more would-be renters -- "seekers" -- who can't afford more than $400 a month even as many homeowners, "because of the economy and the utility bills," ask for $500 or more.
"Loss of employment seems to be the reason for sharing for homeseekers and the cost of living and keeping a home is the reason for homeowners," she added.
It's not always about money, or not entirely. Sometimes homeowners are having trouble seeing to household tasks and are willing to decrease their asking rent for a seeker eager to pitch in.
Seekers vary, too. Some are new to town. Some are graduate students. Some are reducing their housing costs by necessity, but others just want to save money, Maggitti said.
St. Ambrose staffers screen applicants -- homeowners and seekers -- before matching people. The applications ask for four personal references, verification that the person can pay their rent (if a seeker) or their mortgage (if a homeowner) and note that either side can ask for a criminal background check.
Right now, Maggitti said, "We could really use homeowners in the downtown area, close to transportation."
More than 800 people inquired about homesharing last year, but many didn't get to the interview stage for one reason for another -- lack of follow-through, for instance. St. Ambrose actually interviewed 230 seekers and 130 homeowners.
You can find other services designed to match strangers with compatible housing needs. And some folks just go the "roommate wanted" route. (Here's a story I wrote about the roommate search, complete with "speed roommating.")
Do you have a roommate success (or failure) story to share?
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Comments
St. Ambrose is a GREAT resource. I can't wait to meet with them this week.
Posted by: Michelle Brown | February 4, 2011 11:22 AM
You know what would really help these people? Pulling the central planning support that is continuing to prop up the housing market and letting housing prices collapse.
Those who cannot afford housing are the collateral damage from the war on free market housing prices.
But alas, our government is only fulfilling their main function, "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or those who have some property against those who have none at all."-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776
Posted by: Josh Dowlut | February 4, 2011 1:01 PM
Housing is a major, if not the major, cost for most people. Beyond any rich-poor schisms, though, I think the knee-jerk reaction is that anything that brings down home prices in a country where the majority own a home is a Bad Thing.
Interesting to think about this in the contest of the debate about the city's property-tax rate: Most everyone agrees it's too high, but talk about lowering the rate in the hopes of spurring growth always runs up against worries about the short-term budget effect.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | February 4, 2011 1:06 PM
I have mentioned before and its worth repeating....Foreclosure in a sum zero equation, one family out, one family in. Why so much effort to protect the overbrudened incumbent?
Posted by: elweedz | February 4, 2011 2:49 PM
From the community perspective, the issue is that the transition doesn't necessarily go smoothly. The condo below me has been in bank hands for months and months; no buyer yet. Some foreclosures get damaged while they're empty (or as the last owners are on the way out). And some never get occupied again, as Baltimore can attest.
If foreclosed homes could get occupied more quickly, that would help a lot.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | February 4, 2011 2:57 PM