Jul 2nd, 2010
by Annamarie.
Your housemate works in air conditioning and drives in an air-conditioned car. When he comes home he finds the house unbearably hot. You work outside in the hot sun and love to have the windows open. So what if the house is 80 degrees – it’s summer!
Ooops! You have a disagreement. What do you do? This depends on how strongly each feels about their position. You need to communicate so that you can find a compromise.
Here is a formula for resolving housemate issues.
- Find a time to talk face to face.*
- State your issue – just the facts. “When I come home from work the house feels hot to me.”
- Add why it is a concern for you. “and I’m uncomfortable.”
- Ask: “How do you see this issue?” Give the person a chance to respond with their view.
- Paraphrase what that person has said. ” So what you are saying is __________.”
- Ask: “What would be a good compromise that satisfies both of us?”
By the time you have gone through the first two steps—airing of differences and paraphrasing to clarify understanding— it should be easy to find a compromise. Make sure you build the compromise together, this will improve the chances that each of you will follow through on it.
Take these steps to cool down the temperature on any housemate issue.
* Texting and email can make conflicts worse! Don’t use them to air a grievance.
Posted in: Keeping Good Housemates.
Tagged: conflict · housemates
Jun 30th, 2010
by Annamarie.
What a great idea! There is an organization called CoAbode that is specifically for helping single mothers match up with other single mothers to share housing. On the web there is also has a full page of testimonials about how sharing housing has improved the lives of mothers and their children.
Posted in: Finding Good Housemates.
Tagged: single mother
Jun 25th, 2010
by Annamarie.
Pity the government official coping with budget crises and all the demands on shrinking resources. Their decisions can have ripple effects with unintended consequences. For instance, a decision to reduce benefits when individuals are sharing housing. Of course, from one perspective the beneficiary may not need as much money as when they weren’t sharing housing. However, why set things up so that people are discouraged from pooling resources to improve their housing situation?
Here’s the relevant quote from an article in the DailyCal.org :
Speakers at the meeting asked the supervisors to eliminate medical and shared housing deductions from general assistance. As of last September, recipients may have $40 deducted from their assistance for not having health insurance and 10 to 25 percent of their assistance deducted for sharing housing.
“This rule does not make sense,” said Gina Gemello, a law student working at the law center. “It tells GA recipients not to be resourceful, not to pool their resources, not to reduce overhead housing costs.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Posted in: Social Policy.
Tagged: Affordability · doubling up
Jun 22nd, 2010
by Annamarie.
I’ve just posted a short video of me on The Housemate Advisor page. The idea, of course, is to give prospective clients a sense of me.
Posted in: Sharing Housing Basics.
Jun 17th, 2010
by Annamarie.
The Center for American Progress just published an article, The New Housing Normal for Low-Income Families, that cogently makes the case for why it’s not okay for families to “double up.” The article has also been posted here. Read it for the typical social policy response to sharing housing.
According to the author the problems with sharing housing are threefold: crowding, mobility and safety. Of course these are issues. Crowding and mobility show up when sharing housing is a temporary solution to an emergency situation. Safety is an issue regardless of sharing housing. It is not doubling up that is the issue, it’s the lack of options that create the problem.
I understand that the article is making a case for funding the The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, H.R. 4213, but I wish it didn’t do so by attacking the notion of doubling up. It’s enough to know that 16% of households are experiencing severe housing burden as I wrote about in my last post. I also wish that there were a way to write housing policy to encourage people to share housing or at least not discourage it.
Posted in: Social Policy.
Tagged: doubling up · sharing housing
Jun 15th, 2010
by Annamarie.
I’ve learned a new phrase, “severe housing burden,” an academic term for those who spend more than half their income on housing. Moderate housing burden is between 30% to 50% of income. Spending 30% or less for housing is considered unburdened or reasonable.
Data from State of the Nation's Housing 2010
According the State of the Nation’s Housing 2010 report published by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, 16% of all households spend more than half their income on housing. 16%! One in six households! And for those who rent it is one in four households. That’s an awful lot of people. To be precise, this is 44.2 million Americans, 13.7 million of them children.
Three-quarters of these households are truly poor with incomes of less than $14,868 per year. According to the study, households with children had less than $600 a month for all other expenses: food, medical, transportation, clothing, utilities, etc. The elderly and single-person households have less than $500. To have affordable housing, people in this income bracket would have to pay $372 or less for their housing.
Another 19.2 percent or 21,668 households are moderately burdened. That makes a total of 35.6% that are struggling with the cost of housing. How many of these people struggling to make ends meet would improve their lives significantly if they chose to share their housing with others? Naturally, it’s not as easy as simply choosing to move in with another. It takes finding the right housemate to make it work.
Academics use the term “doubling up” to describe sharing housing. Along with the phrase comes a negative connotation. (And probably the image of someone sleeping on the couch.) But in my research for my book, most of the home sharers I talked to had positive things to say about their experience. It’s time for sharing housing to be a realistic solution, especially for those burdened with housing costs.
Posted in: Social Policy.
Jun 9th, 2010
by Annamarie.
Well actually, I don’t mean no taxes ever. But I have been thinking about a change in our tax code. What if the tax code were modified so that those who rent a room in their own residences are not subject to tax on that income?
It would be an incentive to cash-strapped homeowners to try out sharing housing.
What do you think of that?
Posted in: Social Policy.
Tagged: tax
Jun 8th, 2010
by Annamarie.
Is the electronic revolution making ownership a thing of the past? This is an argument of Simon Smith in his most interesting article on “transumers” .
He argues that renting, rather than owning, is a trend that is growing, made possible because of the Internet. Zip cars and Netflix are excellent examples. I’ve noticed this too. Recently, I received a notice about a beta version of a transportation sharing service in NYC called Weeels. The idea is to find others who can share a cab or livery service. There are probably many more examples.
I wonder, are people who choose to live in shared housing “transumers?” I don’t think so. But certainly there is a match between those seeking to minimize their costs of ownership and choosing to live in shared housing.
Posted in: Social Policy.
Tagged: consumers. collaboration
Jun 4th, 2010
by Annamarie.
Which do you prefer? The modern condo with an open floor plan and cathedral ceilings? Or the pre-war rambling house with multiple rooms with doors, nooks and crannies. If you are sharing housing with unrelated people, you should prefer the latter.
These spaces allow individuals to have privacy even when others are home. Think about it – your housemate has a friend over and they are visiting in the living room. You have a friend over and you are making tea in the kitchen. In a house with doors you can close the doors and each of you have your own visit with your friend. In an open space – well the likelihood is that either the four of you visit together or one pair goes out or you simply don’t have friends visit you at home.
Older houses were built for bigger families. Maybe intuitively they understood the value of separate spaces?
Posted in: Keeping Good Housemates, Sharing Housing Basics.
Tagged: doors · housing
May 27th, 2010
by Annamarie.
There’s a good blog post on “When Sharing Hits the Fan” written by Emily Doskow, (author of The Sharing Solution: How to Save Money, Simplify Your Life & Build Community) in which Emily describes the how managing expectations, anticipating obstacles, and agreeing on how to resolve problems are essential for a good sharing relationship. While she is talking about sharing in general and not just for housing, it is worth reading. Read the comments also. The pictures are fabulous.
The key to a successful housemate arrangement is a good match. Expectations must be talked about in the interview. If you have very different expectations, you are going to be unhappy sharing housing. One common one: the person who thinks the housemate will be a “best friend” while the other expects to be independent. This can happen to friends who choose to live together. Other kinds of expectations are around how meals happen or the type of television that is watched.
Anticipating obstacles can be done by simply asking the question, “What could go wrong?” This is a nice way of exploring potential disagreements. The question should also lead into an agreement on how you would communicate if an issue arises.
Once you are living together, if you have an issue – communicate. Look for common ground, put yourself in your housemate’s shoes. Adapt and be flexible. But that doesn’t mean becoming a doormat. You should be willing to find a solution that is agreeable to all parties. Maybe you can use a third person to help mediate an issue – but first try to do it on your own. After all it’s your relationship and your housemate.
Posted in: Interviewing, Keeping Good Housemates.
Tagged: conflict · expectations · Interviewing
