As a housing policy research organization in New York City, our mission is to understand how housing can better meet the needs of the population and have a broader impact on social, economic, health, and equity goals for the city. From every angle, well-designed and well-managed shared housing can play a crucial role.

Sharing a home is already prevalent in New York. The American Community Survey (ACS) has found that a quarter of all New York households include roommates or adult family members sharing a home - although this is likely a gross undercount as it only accounted for households that declared their shared arrangements on the survey. There are many reasons for the prevalence of shared housing from economic necessity, to cultural preferences, to the predominance of single people of all ages and incomes in the city.

However, our housing options do not align with the prevalence of sharing. The layouts and designs of apartments - as permitted by zoning and housing codes in New York City - are stubbornly normative; shaped by an outdated vision of the home, not borne out by the reality of our lives. As a result, too many populations are forced to live in informal shared housing that is not designed or managed for it.

The problems of informal shared housing encompass:

• Physical Danger: overcrowding, informal sub-division of rooms, living in non-residential spaces
• Discomfort: lack of privacy, sharing kitchens and bathrooms not ideal, unable to have minimum space per person
• Legal Vulnerability: not named on a lease, no legal protection
• Economic: shared households push up the price of rental housing, making single people unable to find any suitable housing options in the legal market.

In the face of this current public health and economic crisis, all of these pre-existing vulnerabilities are exacerbated. The discomfort of informal shared housing arrangements has become a public health fault-line. Tenants have no legal protections so are not eligible for any government support programs and could be evicted from their homes at any time, even if they get sick. Households have to shield in spaces that do not meet basic safety or habitability standards. Overcrowding is positively correlated with higher rates of COVID-19, meaning that neighbourhoods with a greater share of overcrowded households are more likely to have a higher per capita case rate.

The problems associated with informal shared housing are widespread, but the effects are disproportionately felt by low-income and marginalized populations. According to the 2017 American Community Survey, 23% of single adults in NYC are low-income and live in informal shared arrangements. Overcrowding disproportionately affects low-income households, New Yorkers of color, and immigrants.

What can be done? An important strategy can be the development of well-managed, well-designed affordable shared housing for single adults.

For shared housing to contribute toward equity goals, public-private partnerships for shared housing are integral. Public subsidy should be available so that rents can be attainable for low-income populations, with caps on annual increases. Regulations need to ensure that shared housing is designed and managed following best practices for health, safety, and habitability.

One example of an exciting innovation following these criteria is a recent NYC pilot called ShareNYC. The NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development announced a pilot seeking shared housing proposals from non-profit and for-profit developers. Shared housing was defined as housing units consisting of two or more independently occupied rooms that share a kitchen and/or bathroom. The proposals were for private development sites with income-restricted units, including those for very low- income renters. In exchange, the developers would be granted regulatory relief from some housing codes and offered public subsidies.

The City also issued a Request for Information through the pilot, calling for parties with knowledge of shared housing to share their insight with the City to ensure that shared housing models could work toward equity goals.

Our research organization wanted to contribute to this worthy endeavor. We conducted a study of best practices from private developers and operators of shared housing from across the world that have achieved such successful models over the last decade; to digest and collate their different voices. The result of this study was a guide – Making Shared Housing Work - that pulled out the core themes that expert practitioners say should be considered to give shared housing a chance to be a successful, attainable, and suitable housing option for low-income single New Yorkers. The guide includes both design and operation best practices, including location and ratio of bathrooms; bathroom design; sound attenuation; multi-function of private rooms; resident matching; conflict management; and many more.

The most illuminating best practices were around recent innovations in resident matching programs, design and layout of shared spaces in relation to private bedrooms, multi-functional design of private bedrooms to maximise efficiency, use of technology tosupport security of shared spaces, resident services, management of the bathrooms and kitchens for cleanliness and productive delivery of shared supplies. These practices are invaluable for affordable housing developers and operators - and government regulators - to ensure that affordable models of shared housing can flourish, and not be associated with the marginal conditions of the past.

If the vast innovation of the private shared housing industry can be brought together with public subsidy, rent restrictions, and regulatory oversight of shared housing, the shared housing typology can be a vital component of the quest to create a more equitable and healthy city.