Chapter 1: What is the special feature of this week's podcast episode?
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Why Americans are moving in with strangers twice their age. Spare bedrooms are America's next housing market. Written by Rachel Cohen for The Highlight by Vox. Narrated by Jamie Lamchick for Apple News Plus subscribers. Denise Poirier was facing a pivotal moment.
After teaching in Maine public schools for more than three decades, she was preparing to leave her career for what would likely be a lower-paying job while also navigating other major changes—adjusting to life after the end of a 28-year marriage, downsizing from a house to a condo, and her third son moving out.
One afternoon, as Poirier listened to local news, she learned about Nesterly, an online platform matching older homeowners with younger renters seeking affordable housing. The company had just launched a statewide partnership and pitched a simple concept. In exchange for below-market rent, some tenants could help with light chores around the house. I'm a natural worrier about money.
I just am that type of person, Poirier told Vox. With my youngest son moving out, I thought, hmm, I have a little extra room. I've always liked young people. I taught high school and under-resourced youth, and I thought maybe this could be a good way to supplement my income.
Soon, she matched with Joseph Anzalone, a 20-year-old student at Southern Maine Community College who also juggled a full-time job at the Hyatt Hotel in Portland. Poirier wasn't looking for help with mowing or shoveling, just someone to keep their space clean and handle their own dishes.
Anzalone was drawn to the idea of a quieter, off-campus space that, at $850 a month, cost hundreds less than a typical apartment in the area. After signing a Nestor Lee agreement, which is like a rental lease but also includes expectations around shared spaces, quiet hours, guests, chores, and smoking, he moved in last August. We got pretty close, Anzalone told Vox.
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Chapter 2: Why are Americans moving in with strangers twice their age?
I've seen situations where an 18-year-old kid is good friends with the 73-year-old retired Marine Corps sergeant, and you never would have predicted that, but they've lived together for five to six years, said Atticus LeBlanc, the CEO of PadSplit, another company founded to facilitate home-sharing arrangements.
Many home-sharing programs now actively encourage these cross-generational connections. It's really a win-win for everyone, said Marcy Alboer, a leader with Cogenerate, a nonprofit focused on bridging age differences. It's not just one generation showing up to serve and rescue another. Reviving an Older Idea
While multigenerational living among relatives has long offered a way for families to share resources and manage caregiving, intentional home-sharing between unrelated people traces its modern American roots to Philadelphia in the early 1970s. That's when Maggie Kuhn, forced to retire at age 65 from a job she loved at the Presbyterian Church, founded the Gray Panthers.
The organization advocated for Social Security, Medicare, and against workplace age discrimination, and grew into a movement with 100,000 members across 30 states within its first decade. As part of this work, Kuhn opened her Philadelphia home to Panther Cubs, younger activists, an experience that led her to establish the National Shared Housing Resource Center in 1980.
That organization would go on to help establish hundreds of home-sharing programs across the U.S., fielding thousands of inquiries annually by the late 1980s. Kuhn viewed home-sharing as both a form of affordable housing and a way to combat social isolation. Kuhn's ideas about intergenerational housing have found new urgency in West Philadelphia.
The city's historically Black neighborhood of Mantua is seeing more longtime residents pushed out as Drexel University expands nearby. Over the past decade, the area's white population has increased by 73 percent, while rents have risen by 44 percent. More concerning, there's been a startling 454% increase in the number of households that spend more than half their incomes on rent.
In response, leaders through the Mantua Civic Association are partnering with Drexel to match students with older residents in the area. Again, the goal is twofold, helping longtime residents maintain or achieve homeownership while providing more affordable rental options for students.
This vision gained traction in 2021 when leaders received state and philanthropic funding to help existing Mantua residents make repairs on their duplexes so homeowners could start homesharing. Now leaders are partnering with a local developer to build a $60 million mixed-use project that will include 18 duplexes and triplexes specifically meant for intergenerational homesharing.
Older Mantua residents will buy the properties and rent out some units to help cover their mortgages. These home-sharing programs will recruit renters from Drexel's longstanding community-based writing workshop, a free arts program for students and local Philadelphians.
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Chapter 3: What is the role of Nesterly in intergenerational living?
Alpha Hernandez, who directs a home share program through the Homeless Intervention Services of Orange County, California, points to deeper concerns about safety. Seniors like the idea of companionship, but even though we're there to facilitate and do monthly check-ins and screenings, they're more prone to identity theft and falling for scams.
So I think that's why there's more fear to participate, she told Vox. Many still view sharing their private living space with strangers as a last resort. Just as ride-sharing in Uber or Lyft had to overcome being seen as weird or risky before becoming mainstream, home-sharing faces similar cultural barriers. Local regulation compounds these challenges.
Some communities still have outdated laws that enforce traditional nuclear family living arrangements. Their zoning codes define family as those related by blood, marriage, or adoption, with occasional exceptions for domestic servants. These restrictive rules can be wielded against not just home-sharing programs, but also larger, often immigrant, intergenerational families living together.
The laws are enforced when people want them to be, said LeBlanc of PadSplit. If you have a neighbor who doesn't want affordable housing in their neighborhood, then you absolutely see an issue with it. Advancing the Future of Home-Sharing Despite these barriers, several states have begun updating their housing policies.
Over the past few years, Colorado, Iowa, Oregon, and Washington have all passed laws banning or restricting family-based occupancy limits. At the federal level, the Department of Housing and Urban Development took a The conversation is expanding beyond just policy changes.
Last spring, leaders in housing, finance, and social services convened for a Harvard University symposium on the future of intergenerational housing. Their October report emphasized design choices that could foster connection. Even spaces as mundane as lobbies and stairwells are being reconsidered.
In one New York City housing complex, the laundry room was placed next to the rooftop garden so that parents and grandparents could play with children, practice tai chi, or attend to gardening projects while washing their clothes. Some jurisdictions are learning from parallel efforts.
After California eased restrictions on accessory dwelling units in 2016, developers built over 80,000 new housing units over the next six years, providing a model that states like Massachusetts, Oregon, and Vermont have since followed. Marcus of Nesterley sees potential for similar momentum in home sharing if more local governments create supportive policies.
She points to the UK's Rent-a-Room scheme, where homeowners can earn tax-free rental income by renting rooms in their primary residence. In Tampa, Florida, 61-year-old Quantia Hollowell shares a six-bedroom pad split home with five people. Though initially drawn to the more affordable rent, she's formed an unexpected bond with Benny, a housemate two decades her junior.
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