Shared housing grows

Guardian - With wages stagnant and rents soaring, young people in New York, San Francisco and other hot (read expensive) cities are increasingly moving in with roommates. The number of 18- to 35-year-olds living with roommates has doubled since 1980. Young people have always needed housemates, especially when times are tough. But this time it’s different. A new generation of co-living companies are trying to make shared housing a billion-dollar business.

Euclid Manor is part of Open Door, a co-living company founded by Jay Standish, 31, and Ben Provan, 32. The pair run three co-living homes: the 5,600 sq ft Canopy, home to 12 housemates, the 6,200 sq ft Farmhouse, home to 16 people, and Euclid Manor, where they moved in back in July. Euclid Manor is currently home to eight permanent residents, which will eventually rise to 10.

The houses self-manage, with Provan and Standish stepping in for conflict resolution if needed. Ideally, the houses should be “self-running, self-sufficient organisms” with different members of the house taking on different tasks and roles.

“Being in a community is like being in a relationship, it does take work and it takes good communications and you have to be proactive,” says Standish. “There are many benefits with having that lifestyle. And, who would want to live their life alone?” Communal Housing Residents and friends enjoy dinner in the dining room of Euclid Manor, a 6,200 sqft co-living house with 11 roommates in Oakland, California on March 13, 2016. The commune’s residents maintain a theme of social impact, creativity and positive change.

In Brooklyn, at two co-living homes run by Common, another co-living company, the menial tasks of living with others, such as buying the toilet paper, buying furniture or cleaning the communal spaces once a week, are all handled by the company.