Right on the Money

“My mother has been lonely for 35 years, but no longer since she has been Homesharing. The scheme in Oxford needs to be more widely publicised so that more people can benefit” Daughter of Householder. Shared Lives Plus Friends and Family Survey 2017

In Homeshare, two people who would not normally meet each other are helped to get to know each other and become housemates. Usually an older person who has a spare room and who wants a little help around the house or some companionship is matched with a younger person who is looking for somewhere affordable to live. When a good match is found, the younger person moves in and contributes to the bills but instead of paying rent, agrees to provide a little help with, for instance, household tasks which the older person is starting to find difficult. With funding from Lloyds Bank Foundation and the Big Lottery Fund, we are working with local Homeshare organisations and national partners including Age UK to bring Homeshare to many more people.

Although Homeshare does not attempt to provide personal care to its older participants, Homeshare is often thought of as a way for a ‘vulnerable’ older person to get support and as a way to tackle loneliness in later life.

In reality, it’s more complicated than that. Research by the Co-operative and the British Red Cross has identified that loneliness can affect people of all ages. For instance, the report identified that nearly a third of young new Mums experienced significant loneliness at a challenging time in their lives. North London Cares and South London Cares, which also brings younger and older people together, found that people in their early twenties were the second loneliest group, after older people. Anouck, coming to England from her native France to live for the first time, lived with Doreen and their Homeshare arranged by PossAbilities in Rochdale is featured on BBC’s Right on the Money on Wednesday 19^th July. For Anouck, Homeshare with Doreen was about much more than accommodation; it was the ‘nest’ to return to each evening and a way to get involved in local activities, with Doreen who also got out and more involved in local life than she had in a life which had been very home-based as an unpaid carer to family members for many years.

Doreen and Anouck

Just as we can all experience loneliness at different times in our lives, we can all become ‘vulnerable’. The careful selection and safeguarding procedures of Homeshare organisations have been developed in recognition of the particular concerns many older people may have about house-sharing, but the model avoids applying a blanket ‘vulnerable’ label to everyone over 65, or assuming that no younger person ever feels vulnerable. This puts Homeshare organisations in an unusual place for a charity (but a very normal one for, say, a dating service or a commercial home-sharing service such as AirBnB), which is recognising that there can be risks in sharing a home, and enabling two people (and often, their families) to understand them and manage them, but not trying to take over: the participants ultimately decide whether to take part and with whom, and they develop their own version of the standard Homeshare agreement, and taking responsibility for it, with the local Homeshare organisation on hand if they run into difficulty.

This approach has a strong safety track record but also creates space for the only real cure for loneliness, which isn’t in the end a volunteer or even a befriending project (useful as those approaches can be): it’s a friend.

“I love that I am helping my householder and knowing that I am having a positive impact on her happiness. I love the stories that she shares with me of her life and experiences.”.  Homesharer. Shared Lives Plus Householder and Homesharer Survey 2017