Want to live in the city? Try buying a house with five friends.
| Toronto
It is their first home together. And as soon as they took possession, they tore down a load-bearing wall and gutted the ground floor, painstakingly discussing everything as they built it back up, from the color of the walls to what would go where.
This hasn鈥檛 been a negotiation among two adults, however, navigating new homeownership together. It鈥檚 involved six.
On a residential street in Toronto鈥檚 West End that would be out of budget for most 30-somethings, a half-dozen friends combined their savings to buy a three-story, brick-facade home, rising above Toronto鈥檚 turbulent housing market.
Why We Wrote This
Modern urban living is often solitary and prohibitively expensive. Could communal ownership of a city residence provide solutions to both problems? Part of an occasional series on Finding 鈥淗ome.鈥�
It鈥檚 a sign of the financial times. But the main driver has been cultural: an intentional choice made to pool together not just finances but life experience, perspective, and generosity of spirit 鈥� forging a new type of home on a city street that can otherwise seem crushingly lonely.
They call it Clarens Commons, and with all six named on the mortgage in a five-year term that anticipates everything from marriage and kids to a 鈥渄ream job in Copenhagen,鈥� their homemaking reflects the alternative ways that young adults are redefining community, and their place in it, today.
鈥淲e all essentially have made a bit of a sacrifice to our independence, to our 鈥榙o-whatever-we-wantness鈥� so that this project can work,鈥� says co-owner Karim Rizkallah.
21st century co-living
This tale starts with a housing market that, as in many large cities in North America, has priced out young people and made homeownership more inaccessible 鈥� and communities, in turn, more unstable.
In May the average detached home in Toronto was selling for $1.3 million (Canadian; U.S.$980,000), , which happens to be what Clarens Commons cost. That鈥檚 in a city that has the world鈥檚 12th most expensive property prices, .
The residents here were able to overcome financial barriers with a six-person mortgage of varying ownership stakes 鈥� providing a chance for all to build equity and find stability, after years of renting in a market where the fear of landlord repossession and turnover runs deep.
On a recent evening, five of the six residents are washing dishes after dinner. The task is completed organically, as are other chores like laundry. Shower times are not prescribed. Other duties are divvied up and strictly followed. Expenses such as groceries are shared equally, in a system they鈥檝e agreed to that values generosity over penny-pinching. When they offer fresh raspberries and nuts to a visitor, everyone has contributed. For longer absences, if someone is on vacation or a business trip, grocery money is not deducted.
Every decision is a conversation, what could be ceaselessly stultifying to some. But the residents here insist it鈥檚 invigorating 鈥� to see the prospects and ideas that emerge from six minds coming to terms together.
Co-living might hark back to the 1960s and 鈥�70s when hippie communes flourished in rural settings, or even the boarding houses that 19th-century immigrants could afford. But millennials have put a 21st-century stamp on their lifestyle choices. The most common form is renting. New companies like Ollie or HubHaus have sprung up, offering residences that are part-dorm, part-hotel in some of the most expensive rental markets from New York to San Francisco.
It鈥檚 an antidote to isolation that many surveyed in Western nations say they feel. In Canada, the most common type of household today is single-dweller. In , 28% of Canadian households were comprised of those living alone, exceeding for the first time households of couples with children. In 1951, single-occupant households accounted for just 7%.
鈥楥hosen family鈥�
Sabrina Bowman would have been counted in those statistics before she moved in with her five co-owners last August. She enjoys her alone time. In fact, several of the members call themselves introverts, saying they often opt out of the events like movie nights in the house when they feel like curling into bed with a book instead.
But then she noticed that her friends were starting to pair off and have kids. And one day when she was struggling to haul a washing machine up to her third-floor apartment it struck her: 鈥淚 felt like I didn鈥檛 have a person,鈥� she says.
Loneliness has gotten much media attention lately, from seniors living alone to young people living anonymously in big urban clusters. Britain appointed a minister specifically dedicated to the issue in 2018. 鈥淲e鈥檙e talking about technology. We鈥檙e talking about the messages of Western culture, 鈥榚ach to his own.鈥� We鈥檙e talking about people running after privacy,鈥� says Ami Rokach, a York University professor who studies loneliness.
Homeowners acknowledge the benefit of company, but it鈥檚 in the shared living where they see the real value of their project. For Ms. Bowman, that鈥檚 the cooking she brings, literally, to the table. 鈥淚 make big pots of food, and then it gets eaten,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t makes my Jewish mother heart extremely full to feed everyone all the time.鈥�
Co-housing, where residents create and manage intentional neighborhoods, has become more popular in recent years, especially among seniors looking for alternatives to dependency on their families or institutions.
But co-living, where owners share a single space, is less encumbered and more accessible to a generation that can鈥檛 as easily afford traditional homeowning, nor necessarily want it, but craves connection, says Charles Durrett, an architect and pioneer of co-housing in North America. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very possible that co-living will exceed co-housing in the next five, next 10 years 鈥� because of this whole millennial phenomenon,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a game-changer moment.鈥�
Co-owner Mandy Sherman, who works in communications for a nongovernmental organization in Toronto, says the group鈥檚 goal is to open the conversation to others 鈥� to show how to build community, especially beyond the standard dichotomy that 鈥渆verybody lives alone or in partners, and that鈥檚 it,鈥� she says.
As a girl, Ms. Sherman assumed she鈥檇 live in an upper-middle-class neighborhood with a partner, kids, and a dog. Now she finds herself in the first home she鈥檚 ever bought after the stresses of renting (in one 10-year period she counts 11 moves). And she, like the other residents of Clarens Commons, find no exact term to define what they mean to one another: housemates, friends, relatives? She tends toward the concept 鈥渃hosen family鈥� 鈥� and has a new image for herself of what 鈥渉ome鈥� can be.
鈥淔or a long time it didn鈥檛 occur to me that lives unfold in other ways,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o there was a little bit of a revelation in that too, of 鈥榦h there are other alternatives.鈥� That鈥檚 interesting,鈥欌�� she says. 鈥淎nd they鈥檙e actually really wonderful.鈥�
