Identifying new affordable housing options for people facing homelessness is a complex challenge, especially in high-cost housing markets. Shared housing – when two or more unrelated people share housing costs and common space – is an adaptable solution when coordination happens at the system level. Scaling shared housing could allow us to expand our crisis response with additional rapid and solution-based housing options.

Across the country, successful shared housing programs have emerged in places like Fredericksburg, Virginia; West Palm Beach, Florida; and Los Angeles and Orange County, California. The essential common components of these programs include: a client-centered approach, capacity to flexibly fund landlord engagement resources, conflict mediation training, and adaptable roommate matching processes.

In Orange County, CA, the Illumination Foundation has connected over 250 highly vulnerable individuals experiencing homelessness with chronic disabling conditions to shared housing in micro-communities since 2017. Illumination Foundation micro-communities are shared homes in residential neighborhoods that have been adapted to serve as PSH for 5 to 8 individuals in each home. Illumination Foundation master-leases the houses, and clients independently lease a room in the house. Critically needed support services are then provided by the program.

Shared housing as PSH or rapid re-housing does not replace other housing efforts, but rather extends the capacity of the system to move more people out of homelessness sooner, especially in tight housing markets. Shared housing can also be successfully deployed in conjunction with community prevention efforts, as well as in connection with coordinated entry processes, in shelter, and as interim housing models.

Read the full article about shared housing at United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.