Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2015

Like good, old boardinghouses?

In uncertain economic times, people may need to bring in additional money, and renting out a room in one's home can be a way to do that. But there seems to be a key difference between the big business version of home sharing that we're now seeing in neighborhoods everywhere -- HOAs included -- and home sharing years ago. Was old-style home sharing more family-focused? Years ago, there were boardinghouses. And while, modern-day home sharing is often compared to boardinghouses, when you look at history, you see a difference...in this excerpt from an article about boardinghouse history in the Encyclopedia of Chicago, for example: "For many landlords and boarders, the household intimacy of boarding was part of its appeal. Boarders not only took their meals within the household, but often participated in family activities. Boardinghouse residents met daily in the shared spaces of the dining room and the parlor. Late-nineteenth-century reformers approved of the family environm...

The transients next door

What if I'm nervous about strangers? Is this the mega-question for those mega-companies rapidly turning residential neighborhoods into home-sharing territories? Into neighborhoods for rent, where rooms in the home, townhouse or condo next door are being rented to strangers for brief stays. What if I'm nervous about strangers coming and going? About strangers who are dropped off by ride-share vehicles or cabs, strangers rolling suitcases in and out of the home next door. About strangers renting a room for a day or two. Or paying to crash on a neighbor's couch. Home sharing is moving into neighborhoods across America and throughout the world. And multi-billion-dollar companies in the home sharing, short-term rental business are doing a lot of advertising and publicity -- with feel-good stories -- to spread the word about home sharing in what is being described as the sharing economy. Public policy executives are getting the word out to politicians. What's happ...