1/28/2004 A home by many other names: Women find new ways of living to save money, create community
Kelly Westhoff
As a newly divorced mother of two on the hunt for a new home, Francie Philliber quickly discovered what her tight budget meant: her housing options were limited. Rather than accept those limitations, however, Philliber did what many people do these days when they have a problem: she turned to the internet for help.
Online, Philliber found an internet community of single moms like herself looking to improve their housing situation and find support by sharing their living space with another mother with kids.
The website, www.coabode.com, brings together hundreds of single moms in the Twin Cities metro, and many more across the country, looking to stretch their housing resources by sharing a home. It is just one of a growing number of resources helping to fuel new trends in shared housing and community living.
Roommates are no longer just for singles in their twenties. Twin Cities residents of all ages and family configurations are choosing to give up their private homes and apartments in favor more communal or community-oriented living situations.
Some people are looking for companionship. Others seek roommates as a way to help with the cost and upkeep of a home they already own. Others, like the mothers on Co-abode's site, know that, given the shortage of affordable housing, splitting the cost of rent and utilities with someone else will enable them to afford a much larger home than they could rent alone.
Mommie matching
Co-abode is the brainchild of Carmel Sullivan, a single mother who lives in the Los Angeles area. She started the website in 2001 after a divorce left her feeling lonely and often frustrated with her housing options. Sullivan knew there had to be other women searching for affordable housing, strong communities and a safe environment to raise their children. Co-abode grew out of Sullivan's desire to help those women connect.
To date, Co-abode has roughly 9,000 registered members nationwide. Interested women register for free by choosing a user name and filling out a confidential profile page. Membership gives women access to Co-abode's services, which include support groups and advice pages.
But the main focus of Co-abode is its mom-matchmaking service. Women can type in their zip code and get a list of postings from women in their area. Each posting includes details about that person: smoker or nonsmoker, number of children, spiritual beliefs, diet preferences, daily schedules and discipline philosophies. Members pay a one-time fee to gain access to the website's blind email service, where they can communicate and learn more about each other before deciding whether to meet.
In the first year, Sullivan counted 112 women who joined funds to create a home for their families. Now, she said, it's hard to keep track. The site has grown so fast that what started as a homespun idea has turned into an entire nonprofit organization. She estimated the site has helped between 400 and 500 single mothers find shared housing nationwide.
Philliber is one of them: recently, she and her two daughters‹an infant and a 3-year-old‹moved into a three-bedroom apartment in Eagan with another single mother and daughter. Each mother has her own bedroom; Philliber's youngest daughter sleeps with her. The two other girls share the third bedroom. While the arrangement was trying at first, Philliber said the girls now treat each other like sisters.
"Our children ask about each other when the other is not around. They entertain each other, but [they] also fight. But they seem to be getting better at working things out," she explained.
The two moms are getting comfortable with each other as well. "It is nice just to have another adult around," said Philliber. "We have become friends and we talk about how our lives are going, our families and men. We hang out together, and we took our girls trick-or-treating together."
While the company and the added help around the house are nice, Philliber maintains the best part about sharing a home is the money. "My daughters and I are able to do more things together because we have the extra money and I do not have to have another job," she explained. "I already work full time and go to school part time."
The golden age
Like Co-abode's single mothers, the members of Golden Girl Homes are attracted to the economy of shared housing costs. Golden Girls, however, are at the other end of life's spectrum. They are single baby-boomers, many of them retired, and they know firsthand the tug between tightening personal budgets and rising bills.
Connie Skillingstad, the Twin Cities woman who founded Golden Girl Homes, borrowed the organization's name from a popular 1990s TV show in which four retired women shared a home. Now nearly 200 women strong, Golden Girl Homes is attracting more attention every day. "There are so many single women in the baby boomer age," Skillingstad said. "And current senior housing options don't appeal to a lot of women. There's a lot of people who are lonesome, but for a lot of women, the idea of shared housing is simply safer and cheaper."
The organization's website, www.goldengirlhomes.org, points out the challenges women face in retirement: they live longer than men but, on average, earn about $300,000 less over the course of their lives. They have smaller pensions and Social Security benefits than men. Many find themselves struggling to remain in their homes after retirement.
The mission of Golden Girl Homes is to help women live in a community of their own creation by sharing ownership of their homes with other women. Monthly meetings help members network with other women in similar life situations. While Golden Girl does help women interested in shared housing by placing ads in the group's newsletter and running interference on phone calls, Skillingstad insists the group is not a matchmaking service. "They're all adults," she said. "They can make their own choices."
To help them with those choices, Golden Girl Homes hosts networking meetings that include discussions of shared housing issues. Members brainstorm questions to ask a prospective housemate; they define which lifestyle choices are okay to compromise on and where to draw the line and say no.
The group has also brought in financial planners, mortgage brokers and realtors to help educate members about the barriers to what many consider a happy retirement. Presentations have focused on shared living and money, including how to split housing costs, what to do with the profit from a home sale and how to buy a property with another person.
Skillingstad admits many women are tentative about the idea of shared living. "For a lot of women, this is an exploration process," she said. Still, she is optimistic about the group's appeal.
To help illustrate shared housing, Skillingstad would like the organization to purchase a home, perhaps on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, and turn it into a model Golden Girl home. If women could see what their pooled resources could actually buy, Skillingstad reasons, more would actively try it. She added firmly, "Women deserve to live in nice housing."
Creating community
Across town, in the Monterey Cohousing Community in St. Louis Park, people have been living in a close community since 1992. Like the members of Co-abode and Golden Girl Homes, Monterey residents are interested in creating a supportive community by sharing a living space. However, Monterey is different in many ways.
For one thing, Monterey is co-ed and multigenerational and welcomes families, couples and single people as members. Currently, 22 adults and nine children reside at Monterey.
With so many people, the housing facilities at Monterey are bigger than an average home. So is the yard. Monterey sits on more than two acres of land. Residents live either in cooperatively owned apartments, which are part of a renovated former nursing home, or in a newer row of owner-occupied townhomes next door.
Members purchase their own units and pay membership dues in exchange for collective ownership of the acreage. Unlike many townhome communities, where association dues go to lawn maintenance, everyone at Monterey pitches in to do yard work and housing projects. Raking is not hired out; it is a time to visit with your neighbors.
Monterey does have ties to a national group, the Cohousing Association of the United States, which helps people organize and develop local cohousing. The association's website, www.cohousing.org, includes a list of the characteristics of "cohousing," as defined by Charles Durrett and Kathryn McCamant, who researched community housing efforts in Scandinavia about 15 years ago. They found developments in Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands that were planned and constructed to encourage community interaction, rather than inhibit it, as was the case in many U.S. subdivisions. Their book, Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves, published in the late 1980s, is widely credited with bringing cohousing to the United States.
Monterey Cohousing Community adheres closely to cohousing's central principle: its physical spaces are designed to encourage community interaction, from the large yard to the indoor gathering areas. There is a spacious living room with a wood-burning fireplace and an impressive kitchen and dining area where members cook and eat together several nights a week. Resident mailboxes are located in a central spot. Laundry facilities are communal and there's an exercise room in the basement.
A group of Monterey's women, ranging in age from 20s to 60, came together one morning to reflect on their shared living experience. They talked about the skills they've learned from one another‹folk dancing, gardening and how to operate a nonprofit organization. They talked about one another's grandchildren. They shared the emotional support they have felt from the community during times of sickness‹their own or a family member's.
"We've been through a lot together," said Joan Cahill, a Monterey member since 1994.
The other women nod and start to count off events their community has witnessed. Births, deaths, marriages and retirements are the first to come to mind. But as the list grows it becomes evident these women, and this community, have weathered much more together. Neighbors attend pet funerals and take pride in the children who grow up and earn driver's licenses. Stories come out about a time when so-and-so fell off a ladder, or someone else was rushed to the emergency room.
The list goes on until it becomes clear that this is more than a housing complex; it's a dynamic community filled with love.
"This is a very rich place to live," Cahill added with a quiet smile.
Shared housing resources
Co-abode: www.co-abode.com
Golden Girl Homes: www.goldengirlhomes.org or 612-332-7200. Informational meetings held on the second Saturday of each month at 9:30 a.m. in the community room at Wells Fargo Bank, 6445 Nicollet Ave., Richfield; and the third Saturday each month at 9:30 a.m. in the Griggs Midway Building, 1821 University Ave. West, St. Paul.
Monterey Cohousing Community: www.jimn.org/mococo or 952-930-7554. Find out more about cohousing at an information session. Jan. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Tour and dinner before the meeting. To make dinner reservations call at least three days ahead.
