The free program, which is growing in popularity across Northern California as the cost of housing continues to rise, emphasizes social compatibility and lifestyle preferences, while also offering lower-cost rents for the tenants and extra income for the homeowners. Some arrangements also offer what the program calls “task exchanges,” or help for homeowners with physical limitations in exchange for lower rents.

In February, after interviewing more than a half-dozen potential matches, Linda met Da’Shonda Parks, a 49-year-old academic counselor at San Francisco State University. They quickly felt a bond.

“We are like best friends,” Linda said. Da’Shonda agrees.

“There’s such a synergy,” she said. “It’s like a match made in heaven.”

Da’Shonda, who relocated from Texas to accept the college post, initially applied with Home Match’s San Francisco office. But after looking at about 10 places in San Francisco without finding one that felt right for her, she expanded her search geography.

Her first Home Match interview in Marin County was by telephone with Linda. Da’Shonda said she felt immediately connected with Linda in that first phone call. When she visited Linda in person, she said she knew her search was over. She moved in on February 14 of this year.

Home Match Marin program manager Lucie Ashley said Linda is one of an influx of home seekers “who more traditionally would be looking for a one-bedroom rental apartment and are coming to us out of frustration with the rental market.”

“The average cost for a studio in Marin County right now is about $2,200,” Lucie said. “Rents with Home Match range from rooms with task exchanges — such as taking out the trash — at $500 per month, to $2,200 for a detached one-bedroom, self-contained apartment, such as an accessory dwelling unit.”

Home Match started in Marin County in 2012 as a service to help older adults stay in their communities and age in place. Now, the service has evolved to accept younger applicants.

“Our home providers tend to be age 65 and up, because that tends to be the population that owns homes,” Lucie said. “However, anybody over 18 is eligible.” She said the length of stay can range from several months to as long as six years. College students, for example, might just need a room for a semester or two — and some home providers might be fine with that.

Luke Barnesmoore, strategy director for Home Match, said there were 55 new matches across the program, which serves San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, and Contra Costa counties, between April 2022 and 2023 (up from 48 the previous year), stabilizing housing for 111 community members. During the past year, there were 5,094 inquires and 554 participant intakes.

Luke said Home Match can be a solution to ease homelessness among older adults on fixed incomes. Though the number of unhoused older adults is increasing rapidly, “older adults have not been prioritized” in the way that youths, families and veterans have been, he said.

The post Home Match Connects Homeowners, Renters Amid Housing Squeeze appeared first on Front Porch.

Covia is a primary investor in the Minka homes project. Minkas are digitally native, human-centered smart homes designed to deliver wellness and strengthen community. Minka homes and communities are purpose-built to address the intergenerational need for cost efficient housing that helps people thrive. 

The Ziegler Link•age Funds seek to invest in companies who are improving aging and post-acute services in the United States and around the world, including Minka homes. The Funds are controlled by a joint venture between Ziegler and Link•age with investors including many of the most innovative and progressive senior living providers, healthcare systems and strategic service providers in the United States, Canada and Australia.

Co-Founded by geriatrician Dr. Bill Thomas, creator of the Eden Alternative and The Green House Project, Minka homes and communities leverage insights into the structure and function of personal independence for older people with innovations in architecture, technology, product design and community development. “Given the impact of COVID-19 on older adults across our country, the need to build affordable homes and communities that foster resilience has never been more urgent,” says CEO Ana Pinto da Silva. “We can map a new path forward with beautifully designed, digitally connected, compact housing that centers wellness and human connection.”

The first Minka homes will be built on Covia’s Spring Lake Village community campus in Santa Rosa. Covia anticipates construction to take place in early 2021. “We are starting out with a flagship Minka Home Demonstration Project,” says Mary McMullin, Covia’s Chief Strategy and Advancement Officer. “This approach allows us to learn together, developing a proof of concept that helps us refine our understanding of cost, scalability, and performance in line with Covia’s core mission to provide outstanding options for people wherever they choose to call home.”

Covia and the Ziegler Link•age Funds hope that this project will provide a solution for senior living that scales to meet the needs of the middle market, helping organizations across the country build communities that support older adults in a way that is responsive to changing needs. “We need to think about bricks and mortar differently,” says Scott Collins, CEO of Link•age, and Manager of the Ziegler Link•age Funds. “We are challenging ourselves to think beyond traditional senior living to find solutions that re-define the market and can scale to meet the demand for affordable, middle-market communities nationwide.”

“We don’t just want shelter. We want community,” says McMullin. “Minka’s approach was the first one that spoke to us. Their design approach allows people to live the way they want to live. I’m truly excited by it.”

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The Fair Housing Act guarantees protection from discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. It is enforced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which subsidizes Covia’s six Affordable Communities.

“I think a big myth is that fair housing is something that’s automatic and that you don’t have to be incredibly intentional about it. You can very easily be in violation of fair housing in two seconds if you’re not careful,” says Sultan. “You have to really be aware of it at all times and be very diligent about maintaining it.”

April is Fair Housing Month, but Covia Affordable Communities works hard to practice that intentionality in fair housing all year round. “We do an annual fair housing training with a fair housing attorney religiously every year,” Sultan reports. “But we also have periodic fair housing check-ins when we do our monthly meetings. It’s something you can’t reiterate enough. If you say it a thousand times, say it a thousand more times. Because as soon as it starts to be not present in the mind, things can happen.”

The planning for fair housing starts long before people move into a community, Sultan explains. “When we open up a wait list, we have to have a HUD approved marketing plan and tenant selection plan. And so those plans really seek to ensure that the process by which you move people into the building is fair.”

Once people move in, “you have a lease and house rules that again you have to be really diligent about because the lease is the same for everybody. Everybody follows the same house rules. So it’s really incumbent upon the site staff to make sure that they’re treating everybody fairly.”

If residents do feel there has been a violation of their rights, they can go through an appeal process. At Covia, “I haven’t had to reverse an administrator for violating fair housing up to now. It could happen. It just hasn’t happened as of yet,” says Sultan. “But I do remind them always that sometimes it’s not what you do but how you do it. Are you communicating thoroughly enough when you’re having people stick to their lease or talking to them about the violation of house rules. Are you ensuring that you’re communicating in a way where they feel like, ‘This is standard, and this is not just targeted at me’?”

Although not subject to the same federal law as the HUD-subsidized communities, Covia’s Home Match program is also attuned to the need for fair housing. Home Match, Covia’s Shared Housing program, connects homeowners with extra space with home seekers who need a place to live in the expensive Bay Area housing market. Home Match works with home owners and home seekers to create a Living Together Agreement that may include a home seeker providing services, such as shopping or pet care, in exchange for a reduction in rental costs.

Tanya Ahern, Program Director for Home Match in Fremont, previously served on a board of a Fair Housing organization and brings her experience to the table when helping to match homeowners and home seekers. “With shared housing I think the most important thing is to make sure that you don’t have identifying characteristics that go into referring people so that that way it’s based purely on their merit and their financial means to pay and it’s not based on race or gender,” says Ahern.

“I see a lot of people who have been turned away from housing because of race, because of disability status,” says Ahern. “Because Home Match prescreens, it makes people more comfortable and more open to housing with people that maybe they might not have considered before. I think it’s really helping house people who didn’t have a fair shake in the world. I think it’s a perk that it’s helping house people who face challenges due to stigma.”

For Covia Affordable Communities, fair housing is part of its legal mandate, but Sultan observes it’s not just about complying with the legal requirements. It’s about making residents feel at home. “Over time, when residents witness the rules being applied equally, it does give them confidence that ‘this is a place where I can feel safe, where I won’t be targeted because of my race, because of my sexual orientation, because of my religion.’ And that’s very, very important because a big part of home is security and being safe.”

“As long as you own and manage communities, and you house people, fair housing is something you have to be constantly aware of,” Sultan says. “It never gets old. It never gets easy. It never gets stale. It’s just something you have to be really diligent about at all times.”

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If you have ever experienced a trauma (and most of us have), you may not want to talk about it. That’s the way it was with me, but my friends at Covia convinced me that other people might be helped by my “confession.” So, here goes.

The trouble began in early 2012. Having been unemployed for 2 years (a direct result of the 2008 recession), my money completely ran out and I was faced with eviction from my Oakland apartment of 16 years. When you can’t pay the rent, the sheriff simply changes the locks and you don’t get in.

A friend (call him J.R.) saved me from life in the street by offering to let me sleep in his van. This is not an ordeal I would wish on anyone. Though not too uncomfortable physically (just make sure you have lots of blankets in cold weather), you are constantly in fear of police and hostile “neighbors.”

After 3 ½ years in this situation, I returned to the van one afternoon to find that it was no longer there. A police woman parked nearby informed me that the van had been towed only an hour before. All my possessions (books, CDs, clothing and a guitar) were gone. Although I’d been careful not to park it in front of anyone’s house (it had been near an empty lot), I guess the old Dodge Ram was an eyesore to some “upstanding citizens.” So I experienced two disasters in less than 4 years.

At this point, I walked to J.R.’s house and told him what had happened. He somewhat shamefacedly admitted that he had neglected to pay some old parking tickets as well as vehicle registration, but then offered to let me sleep in a tent in his back yard.

One afternoon soon after this, I received a phone call from Oak Center Towers. I had applied for residency there over a year before, and they now had a vacant studio apartment. This was the first cheerful note in my life since 2010! On arriving at my first interview, I met Julia Bergue, a sweet and flexible person who did all the necessary paperwork.

Finally, on August 17, 2016, I spent the first night in my new home. Somewhat dazedly, I realized there was a solid, legitimate, leak-proof roof over my head.

So take it from me: when you’ve hit rock bottom, the only way is up. Keep a-going’!!

Dean, age 66, earned his Master’s degree and worked as a paralegal for 20 years before losing his job during the great recession. 

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From the article:

“We call these homeowners ‘house-rich and cash-poor,’” said Tracy Powell, vice president of community services for Covia (formerly Episcopal Senior Communities), which runs the Home Match program in San Francisco along with Northern California Presbyterian Homes & Services. “They have the house, but their maintenance, taxes, food and medical costs are all going up. So bringing in a lodger at $1,000 a month can make the difference between keeping or losing it.”

…

But finding a compatible housemate involves much more than just agreeing on pets, smoking, visitors and other deal-breakers, said Max Moy-Borgen, director of Home Match Contra Costa. “There’s a lot more that comes into play when you are living together with someone than just a standard rental where you’re living on your own,” he said. “But when everything clicks, it means that people are really enjoying the arrangement and it’s a good fit.”

…

In-person home-sharing services like Home Match counter that they have the advantage of face-to-face contact with applicants and knowledge of local conditions — and that their services are often free.

In San Francisco, for example, where the program is supported by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, Home Match created a model contract that can be canceled with a simple written notice, not a time-consuming eviction. And, because Home Match checks back regularly with both homeowners and lodgers, it can step in to mediate if their needs change.

When Kevin Wallace, a 67-year-old San Francisco remodeling contractor, first took in a lodger last year, for example, it was partly to help him take care of his wife, who suffered from dementia. After some months, however, his wife’s condition worsened and she had to go into full-time care. So Christine Ness of Home Match sat down with the pair to re-negotiate their contract.

Now the lodger, 72-year-old Elizabeth (she asked that her last name not be used), a retired Montessori teacher, pitches in on chores in exchange for her $350-a-month room in Noe Valley. “My son from Cambodia came home for a visit recently and said, ‘Hey Dad, the house looks great. Make sure you keep Elizabeth,’” Wallace said.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, figures she spends about an hour a day on chores ranging from dishes to laundry to clipping flowers from the garden for ikebana floral arrangements. In exchange, she has an affordable room in a city she loves because “San Francisco is an outdoors place, and I’m a nature person.”

The biggest challenge that all home-sharing services face — whether online or off — is finding enough homeowners to meet demand. “When we first started matching people in San Francisco a few years ago, no one had heard of it,” said Powell of the San Francisco Home Match program, even though the home-sharing phenomenon has been around nationwide for decades. “But now we’re reaching a tipping point, and homeowners are more willing to give it a try.”

And while the chief goal remains affordable housing, the Home Match crew is always happiest when its work leads to more.

“I tell homeowners that it can turn out to be a wonderful experience to invite someone into your home,” said Ness, director of Home Match Marin. “Even if you’re just doing it initially for rental income or service exchange, sometimes it can turn into a community of friends.”

…

Learn more about Home Match here.

Photo by Michael Macor / San Francisco Chronicle / Polaris

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LGBT Housing – A Community Conversation About Lessons Learned and Future Directions will be moderated by Karim Sultan, VP of Affordable Housing for Covia. The panel will include: Marcy Adelman, co-founder Openhouse, a San Francisco non-profit exclusively focused on health and well-being of LGBTQI elders; Karyn Skultety, Executive Director of Openhouse; and Ileah Lavora, Housing Developer at Mercy Housing.

“Hopefully, the panel will motivate like-minded parties, whether it be in San Francisco or in the greater Bay Area, to build more LGBT housing,” says Sultan. “Obviously, there would be a lot of work between this initial conversation and a building going up, but we would like to start a larger conversation.”

After the panel, participants are invited to take a tour of the housing community at 55 Laguna, which provides Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender-welcoming housing for seniors age 55 and older. Though open to people of all sexual orientations or gender identity, 68% of the residents identify as LGBT.

The LGBT Community Center is located at 1800 Market Street. To register for this event, please visit this eventbrite site. 

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