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Housing, Theory and Society
ISSN: 1403-6096 (Print) 1651-2278 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/shou20
Shared Room Housing and Home: Unpacking the
Home-making Practices of Shared Room Tenants
in Sydney, Australia
Zahra Nasreen & Kristian. J. Ruming
To cite this article: Zahra Nasreen & Kristian. J. Ruming (2020): Shared Room Housing and
Home: Unpacking the Home-making Practices of Shared Room Tenants in Sydney, Australia,
Housing, Theory and Society
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2020.1717597
Published online: 23 Jan 2020.
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ARTICLE
Shared Room Housing and Home: Unpacking the
Home-making Practices of Shared Room Tenants in Sydney,
Australia
Zahra Nasreen and Kristian. J. Ruming
Department of Geography and Planning, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
ABSTRACT
Shared room housing is a growing private rental submarket, which
offers flexible and affordable rental sub-lettings for sharing
a bedroom or living room with non-related tenants. However,
research exploring the living experiences and home-making prac-
tices of shared room tenants is sparse. Drawing on an empirical
base of shared room housing experiences in Sydney (online survey
n = 103, in-depth interviews n = 35), this paper provides insights on
how these residents strive to achieve the material, social and emo-
tional elements of home while dealing with insecure occupancies
and maintaining multiplex relations with non-related roommates
and housemates. In response to shifting spatial, material and social
configurations, home in shared room housing emerges as an ever-
changing process of (re)making and unmaking.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 5 April 2019
Accepted 13 January 2020
KEYWORDS
Shared room housing;
home-making; home
unmaking; secure
occupancy; ontological
security; shared home
Introduction
Housing practices are changing in response to housing affordability issues and greater
geographical mobility, especially in global cities (Lloyd and Vasta 2017). As one response
to rising affordability pressures, shared housing has emerged as an important housing
choice for diverse population groups, particularly low-income young and mobile tenants
(Green and McCarthy. 2015). Shared housing tenants are able to divide rental and utility
costs among multiple non-related housemates so they can live in rental properties (and
locations) which they could not otherwise afford (Steinführer and Haase 2009). The
proportion of people living in shared households has increased in Australia’s capital cities
over recent decades (Hilder et al. 2018). Similar trends in shared housing are also observed
in the UK (Green and McCarthy. 2015), the USA (Ahrentzen 2003), New Zealand (Clark et al.
2017), Germany (Steinführer and Haase 2009) and Italy (Bricocoli and Sabatinelli 2016).
“Shared room housing”is a growing subcategory of shared housing, which differs from
shared housing by involving the sharing of bedrooms or living rooms for sleeping arrange-
ments with non-related tenants. Shared room tenancies are usually arranged under multi-
layered sub-letting rental arrangements which lack formal protection. Shared room housing
is a distinct form of tenure due to the sharing of sleeping spaces with non-related
CONTACT Zahra Nasreen zahra.nasreen@mq.edu.au Department of Geography and Planning, Macquarie
University, Sydney, Australia
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY
https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2020.1717597
© 2020 IBF, The Institute for Housing and Urban Research
roommates, short-to-mid-term occupancies, and mostly informal tenancy agreements.
Despite the growth of shared room housing, little is known about how these tenants
engage in the process of home-making and whether they feel at home in these non-
family cohabitations. Maalsen (2018) argues that shared (room) housing requires research-
ers and policymakers to (re)think home as shared, rented and fluid spaces.
The literature on “home”places increasing importance on understanding the dynamic
experiences and shifting meanings of home while considering diverse socio-economic
characteristics and housing tenures. An emerging body of research explores the influence
of tenure on individuals’meanings of home, home-making practices and sense of onto-
logical security, mainly in formal housing, such as ownership housing (Dupuis and Thorns
1998; Hiscock et al. 2001), public housing (Mee 2007) and private rental housing (Easthope
2014; Fowler and Lipscomb 2010). Research has recognized that different housing tenures
provide residents varying degrees of power to use and modify their dwellings for making
home (Bate 2018; Easthope et al. 2015; Ruonavaara 2012). Home is viewed as a source of
“ontological security”in that it provides residents with a consistent social and material
environment, a site to perform day-to-day routines and a space to create and maintain
their self-identity and sense of privacy (Easthope 2004; Giddens 1991). Creating a sense of
“home”is seen to be difficult where housing is insecure, the spatial and material elements
of home are inconsistent, social relations are unreliable and distrusted, and individuals’
emotional experiences are unsettled (Fozdar and Hartley 2014; Roelofsen 2018). Given the
diversity of housing practices, researchers need to understand the relational complexities
and micro-geographies of material, social and emotional uncertainties of home, and their
influence on individuals’well-being (Brickell 2011).
Drawing on shared room housing experiences, this paper explores tenants’desires and
abilities to use and modify material resources and establish social relations in order to
make home in diverse shared room housing sites. In doing so, the paper explores the
factors influencing residents’feelings of home and sense of ontological security in shared
room housing. The paper employs a theoretical framework of home as a continuous
process of making and unmaking, with a focus on relational and temporal elements which
shape this process. Findings highlight the importance of secure occupancy –the capacity
of tenants to personalize and use dwellings according to their needs and values and to
stay there for a desired period of time (Hulse and Milligan 2014)–for making shared
home. The paper provides insights for researchers and policymakers interested in how
tenants feel at home and enact home-making practices during short-to-mid-term infor-
mal tenures while living with non-related roommates and housemates.
Shared Housing
Homeownership remains Australia’s dominant housing tenure with nearly 70% of house-
holds owning or purchasing their dwellings –a proportion which has remained relatively
constant since the 1970s (Gurran and Phibbs 2016). However, homeownership has seen
a decline in outright home-owners from 42% to 31%, and an increase in owners with the
mortgage from 30% to 35% since 1995 (ABS 2017). Globally, the Australian housing
market is one of the least affordable, with 47% of households who are purchasing their
homes in ‘mortgage stress’
1
(Shelter NSW 2018). Private rental housing has experienced
long-term growth, with nearly 25% of households renting from private landlords (ABS
2Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
2017). The proportion of households in private rental housing is higher in Sydney, with
29% of households renting privately (ABS 2017). Sydney’s private rental market is the least
affordable in Australia, with 55% of low-income households in ‘rental stress’
2
(Shelter NSW
2018). Low-to-middle-income tenants usually live in sub-standard housing with periodic
rent increases and insecure occupancies (Easthope 2014). Private renters can be forced to
leave on “no ground”evictions,
3
requiring them to frequently move between dwellings,
which can cause financial and emotional stress (Hulse and Milligan 2014).
Young populations and low-income individuals (i.e. students, recent migrants and early
professionals) face the most difficulty in accessing Sydney’s private rental market, espe-
cially surrounding education and employment centres (Nasreen and Ruming 2019).
Sydney has seen increased youth mobility for employment and education purposes,
but local housing markets in high demand locations have been unable to provide
sufficient affordable housing (Ruming and Dowling 2017). Consequently, low-income
tenants have increasingly looked to shared housing during transitional housing circum-
stances (McNamara and Connell 2007). The motivation for living in shared housing can
vary, with limited financial resources, housing affordability, geographical location of
dwellings, and desire for social and cultural support all emerging as important factors.
Sharing among professionals is also associated with emerging adulthood as individuals
move away from family restrictions (McNamara and Connell 2007). International migrants
and first-time renters choose to (or are forced to) live in informal shared room housing as
they are unable to provide income and rental history documents required as part of a
formal rental application. Shared room housing provides flexible rental arrangements
because many of the formal requirements are removed, while furniture is often provided,
and bond payments are reduced (Nasreen and Ruming 2019). Steele and Keys (2016)
argue that such spaces at the margins of housing present vital sites for the creation,
maintenance and preservation of home, precisely because of their temporality and
flexibility which are vital in creating and sustaining home.
The shared housing sector is diverse and mostly hidden within the existing residential
stock. Its organization, composition, geographical location, tenancy and sharing rules
differ between contexts (Steinführer and Haase 2009). Multiple rental arrangements are
observed, including families who rent out their spare rooms, friends and families taking
rental leases to live together, and property investors who lease out whole properties to
non-related tenants (Nasreen and Ruming 2019). The way in which internal space is
arranged is also diverse, and can include living in private bedrooms, shared rooms,
partitioned living rooms, couch surfing or garage sleeping (Mayson and Charlton 2015).
These shared housing sites are accessed mainly through digital platforms recording
online listings of available rooms and properties (Maalsen 2018). Official statistics, such
as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), have failed to accurately report the trends,
characteristics and diversity of the shared housing sector, combining all forms of shared
housing into one category of “group households”(ABS 2010). There is a need to study and
distinguish between different forms of shared housing in order to understand home-
making practices in marginal living arrangements.
A subcategory of shared housing is “shared room housing”where residents share
a bedroom or living room with one or more non-related adults, and in extreme cases,
they go as far as sharing beds (Nasreen and Ruming 2019). To date, much of the research
focus has been on “shared housing”where bedrooms are perceived to be private domains
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 3
(accessed only by an individual or couple in a relationship), while common areas such as
kitchen, bathroom, living room and laundry are shared (Clark et al. 2017). However,
research exclusively on shared room housing experiences and the potential of these
sites to function as home remains scant. Shared room tenants are often disadvantaged,
continuing to live in manipulative and insecure housing circumstances. Issues of health
and safety, overcrowding, conflicts and tensions, and limited control over the use of space
and materials arise in shared room housing, which can lead to ontological insecurity for
these tenants. These precarious living arrangements meet the ABS definition of “home-
lessness”, as tenants live in overcrowded housing, lack secure occupancy and have limited
control over the use of space and resources in the dwellings (ABS 2012).
Home and Home-making
The notion of “home”is complex, as individuals differently experience and reflect upon
their attachment with a place and/or social relations that influence making of “home”. The
literature on “home”outlines a series of criteria for defining home and understanding
individuals’lived experiences and home-making practices (Baxter and Brickell 2014; Blunt
and Dowling 2006; Easthope 2004; Mallett 2004). Literature suggests home is not just
a physical entity (spatial and material elements of home), but also an imaginative entity
(that is imbued with personal feelings, emotions and meanings) and that the material and
emotional geographies of home are relational (Blunt and Dowling 2006). This relational
approach requires that attention be given to home-making process which generates both
material elements (the dwelling) and emotional aspects of home, simultaneously. Though
this material-emotional process may be enough to create a sense of home, home is also
influenced by social and power relations within a household and beyond it. Home has
a“power geometry”whereby individuals are differently positioned in relation to, and
differently experience, home (Massey 1992). In other words, the entanglement of embo-
died and emotional relationships with people and objects (social and material elements)
shapes the home-making process and living experiences (Lloyd and Vasta 2017).
Home can encounter various obstacles and experience disruptions, which can lead to
home unmaking (Baxter and Brickell 2014). Home unmaking does not necessarily mean
the complete destruction of the material, social and emotional elements of home, but
rather that home can be ambiguously experienced as a place of belonging and alienation,
desire and fear, intimacy and insecurity (Blunt and Dowling 2006). In this sense, feelings of
home have a distributed and processual relation with spatial, material and social elements
of home, rather than as a one-time achievement (Power 2009). Home is a place of material
breakdown and repairs, break-ups and patch-ups of social relations, and day-to-day
disruptions and regulations in multisensory experiences; hence, it is subject to an ongoing
process of making and unmaking. Home unmaking can be a multisensory process where
excessive noise, dirt, odour, disorder and disruptions can impact upon emotions and
feelings of home (Burrell 2014). Brickell (2011) suggests understanding what sort of home
is being unmade, for how long and how often, helps in tracing the temporalities of home.
The temporal dimensions of home also extend to the length of time an individual lives
and spends in a dwelling and one’s stage of life. The longer an individual intends to live at
a place, the stronger the desire and motivation for home-making and place attachment
(Fowler and Lipscomb 2010). Importantly, the material and social environment of home
4Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
influences decisions around the length of stay in a particular dwelling (Roelofsen 2018).
Furthermore, life stage and circumstances affect the meanings and experiences of home.
For example, the situation of migrants advances conventional meanings of home by
acknowledging transnational or translocal belonging, meaning many people feel at
home in more than one place, simultaneously (Lloyd and Vasta 2017). Migrants’homes
and home-making practices often reflect their shifting meanings of belonging as well as
deeper cultural ties to places of origin. This suggests that ideas of home are relational
across time, space and culture (Blunt and Dowling 2006). In short, home can be
a relational and temporal place where meanings are produced through the multi-
layered nexus of spatial, material, emotional and social geographies (Fowler and
Lipscomb 2010).
Positioning Shared Home
Research on shared housing has explored the drivers of its growth and the impacts of shared
housing on residents, neighbourhoods and wider urban systems (Bricocoli and Sabatinelli
2016; Green and McCarthy. 2015; Nasreen 2018; Steinführer and Haase 2009). However,
limited attention has been given to the ways shared housing residents create a sense of
home and the influence of shared housing on their home-making practices (Clark et al. 2017;
Heath et al. 2018;Maalsen2018). Hulse and Milligan (2014) introduce the concept of “secure
occupancy”as a way of understanding tenants’desires and endeavours to make home in
rental housing. Secure occupancy relates to the capacity of tenants to personalize a dwelling
according to their needs and values and to stay there for a reasonable period of time, so long
as they meet their tenancy obligations (Hulse and Milligan 2014).
Secure occupancy can be limited in shared housing due to the (informal) nature of the
tenure. Shared tenancies are arranged for relatively short-term durations, lowering resi-
dent expectations about long-term tenure security (Heath and Cleaver 2003). Heath et al.
(2018) suggest time matters in shared housing because it interacts with (and in some
cases underpins) other facets to shape everyday relational dynamics. For example, shared
housing residents living in short-term accommodation are unlikely to invest (either
financial or emotional) in the property to make it home (McNamara and Connell 2007).
Further, hierarchical power relationships can develop between residents in shared hous-
ing. For example, a live-in landlord/head-tenant/manager is viewed as more powerful
compared to other tenants (Heath et al. 2018). This power differential is expressed via the
fact that landlords/head-tenants often fail to provide sub-tenants with “written tenancy
agreements”, especially in shared room housing, and impose unfair restrictions on how to
use the space and furniture (Mayson and Charlton 2015). Power dynamics also emerge
based on the length of stay, with longer-term residents setting shared living rules. In this
sense, power dynamics and economic relationships exert influence over home-making
practices and feelings of home in these non-family cohabitations.
The physical structure of shared housing sites is not purposefully designed and built for
tenants to live with multiple non-related adults. Instead, existing residential properties
designed for (nuclear) family households are converted for shared accommodation in the
private rental market. The needs of multiple adults in the shared household differ from
those of a nuclear family (typically a couple with children). Instead of adding more bath-
rooms, enhancing the kitchen and bedroom size, or providing more communal spaces for
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 5
socialization, overcrowded living arrangements often occur (Heath et al. 2018). For example,
landlords/lease-holders often convert living rooms into bedrooms to accommodate more
people for increased rental returns (Nasreen and Ruming 2019). Overcrowded housing
circumstances can, in turn, limit the ability of tenants to use the space and furniture
according to their needs, which can affect their performance of day-to-day routines, such
as cooking and bathing (Green and McCarthy. 2015). Issues of privacy, sleep disturbance,
cleanliness, noise and mental stress are also identified by tenants due to sharing sleeping
spaces, particularly in shared room housing (Mayson and Charlton 2015). These challenges
disturb the multisensory experiences of home and can create conflicts between residents. In
this sense, feelings of home are rarely fixed, but instead are dynamic and varying through
time (Heath and Cleaver 2003).
The “social configuration”of a shared household also plays a vital role in the home-
making process. Clark et al. (2018) argue that a (higher) degree of compatibility between
tenants’personality traits, lifestyles and cultural/ethnic background is conducive to
intra-household relations and sustainability of the shared home. In this sense, many
tenants prefer to live with people of similar gender, age group and cultural profiles, so
they can better work together for shared home-making (Clark et al. 2018). “Social
dynamics”of shared homes differ from household to household, and are subject to
flux due to frequent turnover of tenants. Shared homes can require people from
different socio-economic and cultural/ethnic backgrounds to live together, which
require them to learn about/respect cultural and lifestyle differences. Shared housing
residents endeavour to develop social relations with non-related housemates, which, in
turn, influence their participation in home-making practices and desires to continue
living in shared homes (Heath et al. 2018; McNamara and Connell 2007). However, social
relations between non-related roommates and housemates are subject to change as
conflicts occur, mostly based on household chores, complex financial dealings and
cleanliness issues (Clark et al. 2017).
Fundamental characteristics of home as a source of ontological security such as consis-
tency of the social and material environment, sense of autonomy and privacy are difficult to
achieve in shared housing, in particular, shared room housing (Kenyon and Heath 2001).
Evidence suggests that the overcrowded and conflictual housing conditions make it difficult
for the conditions of ontological security to be met (Green and McCarthy. 2015). However,
shared room housing offers flexibility from formal tenancy requirements, affordability due
to shared rental costs, and social support received from roommates and housemates. While
existing research acknowledges the positives and negatives of shared housing, little is
known how residents living in shared room housing are (un)able to create a sense of
home. This lack of research in shared room housing is partially because the notion of
home is typically associated with housing which provides (long-term) security and prosper-
ity, while shared room housing is often viewed as transitional, short-term and insignificant
living arrangement (Clark et al. 2018). In filling this research gap, this paper explores the
experiences and home-making practices of those living in shared room housing in Sydney.
Methods and Results
This paper draws on two methods of data collection: an online survey and resident
interviews. Residents of shared room housing were recruited through advertisements
6Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
posted at different platforms popular for finding shared rooms in Sydney, including
websites (such as gumtree.com.au, Facebook groups, Twitter pages) and university
noticeboards. Online research methods are useful for accessing hard-to-reach population,
yet there are limitations in obtaining a representative sample and high completion rate.
The online survey recorded 103 completions. While the sample size is relatively small, it
provides useful insights into shared room tenants in Sydney and elsewhere.
The majority of participants (92%) were young adults aged between 18 and 35
years,andtheremaining8%wereofagedover35years.Intotal,75%were
international migrants (56% international students, 11% permanent migrants, 4%
working holiday markers, 3% employer-sponsored visa and 1% refugees), while
25% were Australian citizens (mostly casual/part-time employed). The majority of
participants’(72%) had a weekly income below $650 (Figure 1), which places them
in the lowest quantile of income categories defined by the ABS (ABS 2017). Most
participants (70%) were paying less than $200 a week rent. However, more than two-
thirds (69%) were under “rental stress”(i.e. paying more than 30% of their income on
rents) (Figure 1). While the majority were experiencing rental stress, more than half
(55%) mentioned that utility costs (electricity, gas, water supply and internet bills)
and furniture (70%) were included in weekly rent. Tenants paid less bond than
usually required in the formal rental housing market, with 63% paying less than 4
weeks rent as bond. These characteristics suggest shared room housing appeals to
those looking for flexible and affordable housing in Sydney.
Room sharing tenancies were largely taken as short-to-mid-term living arrangements,
with 46% participants intending to stay for less than 6 months, while 33% were intending
to stay between 6 months and a year (Figure 2). However, almost half of participants (43%)
were not first-time room sharers, and 26% had spent more than a year in shared rooms
housing in Sydney. Just over half of participants (53%) moved alone to live with strangers,
while the remainder moved in with at least one friend. A majority of participants (59%)
were living in mixed-gender households, while 22% were living in shared households
comprised of all females and 19% with all males. Only a small proportion (18%) of
participants were living with live-in landlord/head-tenant.
Shared room housing is primarily managed through informal tenancy sub-lettings
(Figure 3). This has the potential to create overcrowded and substandard housing situa-
tions. Over a third of participants (38%) had no written record of tenancy agreement, 66% of
participants did not have bonds registered with NSW Fair Trading
4
and 33% paid cash with
limited or no record of rent payment receipts. Furthermore, 18% of participants mentioned
partitioning of living rooms, and 27% shared the bedroom with more than one other
person. The majority of respondents (66%) shared the toilet/bathroom with more than
two people.
At the end of the survey, participants were asked if they would be willing to undertake
an interview. In total, 35 interviews were conducted (with 21 females and 14 males). Each
participant was living in a different shared room housing site and sharing the bedroom.
Many participants also shed light on their experiences in previous shared room housing
sites in Sydney. Interviews with residents provide in-depth responses to understand their
home-making practices and sense of home in shared room housing. In total, 25 partici-
pants shared photos of their shared rooms and common areas, such as living rooms,
kitchens and toilets/bathrooms.
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 7
Shared Room Housing and Home-making
In shared room housing, various factors such as tenure conditions, spatial and material
arrangements, and social relations with non-related tenants can influence the process of
making or unmaking “home”. This section explores how these diverse factors affect
tenants’desires and abilities to perform day-to-day routines and participate in home-
making practices while living with non-related roommates and housemates. In doing so,
the fluidity, relationality and micro-geographical uncertainties that shape the process of
making and unmaking shared room home will be explored.
The Importance of Secure Occupancy for Home-making
Insecure rental occupancy can inhibit a person’s ability to participate in home-making
practices and achieve a sense of ontological security (Easthope 2014). The security of
Figure 1. Participants’income and rental cost profile.
Source: Online survey.
8Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
occupancy is a multi-layered concept which involves being able to rent housing for
a desired period of time with the protection of rights as tenants and consumers, to receive
support from the government if required, and to exercise control over the use and
modification of housing resources to make home (Hulse and Milligan 2014). Rental
occupancy without a tenancy agreement or with a partial agreement (Figure 3) can
leave tenants uncertain of their rights and responsibilities and create power dynamics
among roommates and housemates. For participants, verbal agreements and cash rent
payments restricted their capacity to claim their tenancy rights and to report tenancy
Figure 2. Participants’duration of stay in shared rooms.
Source: Online survey.
Figure 3. Participants’tenancy arrangements.
Source: Online survey.
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 9
issues to complaint resolution services in case of conflict. The extent to which participants
were aware of the rules and regulations governing Sydney’s rental housing and shared
housing markets was also limited, especially for migrants. Low-income migrants, espe-
cially from non-English speaking countries, have substantial difficulties in navigating
Sydney’s rental market and often secure housing through informal online or social net-
works (Easthope, Stone, and Cheshire 2018). Informal and uncertain tenure agreements
left participants vulnerable to paying higher rents for overcrowded housing, eviction,
forfeiting bond deposits, and other kinds of exploitation, such as demand for additional
payments and constant fear of losing shelter or deposits. These conditions have
a significant effect on feelings of home and sense of ontological security:
“In terms of the contract and feeling secure about the contract . . . I do not feel 100 per cent
secure. I wasn’t sure if she would give my bond [deposit] back and she wouldn’t kick me out
before the time, as she told me that she did that with another girl . .. I don’t feel that it is my
house, I don’t feel at home, especially because of this reason that I told you about rules being
different for me than for the [property] manager. That’s why it’s her house, it’s not mine.”
(Participant 1, female, permanent resident from Brazil, full-time student, age: 20–24 years)
The right to occupy shared room housing is granted by landlords/head-tenants who can,
in turn, set rules which frame tenants’experiences of home. Given the informal housing
tenure, shared room housing is subject to negotiation between the landlord/head-tenant
and tenants/sub-tenants. In this regard, participants mentioned multiple conditions set at
the time of occupancy, which limited their rights to use shared housing resources and
generated feelings of “homelessness”. The critical cases include when participants were
not allowed to use their residential addresses to receive mail (as landlords/head-tenants
were afraid of receiving overcrowding notices from city authorities), when they were
dependent on roommates to access the dwellings because door keys were shared
(common in apartments where Strata authorities only provided one additional master
key), when they were not allowed to invite friends to their homes (as this might affect the
comfort and sense of security of other residents), and when their use of electrical items,
such as heaters, air conditioners and hot water was restricted (as utility bills were shared
or included in the rent). In this sense, the power dynamics emerge between landlords/
head-tenants and shared room tenants, positioning landlords in a more authoritative
position as they decide what can and cannot be done in shared homes. The ability of
shared room housing tenants to exercise control over the use of dwellings is limited,
which, in turn, affects their feelings of home:
“I don’t really feel like I’m at home . . . [Home is] a place where I can invite people over without
having to ask others. A place where I make the rules. A place where I don’t have to worry
about what other people are doing or what other people are going to think.”(Participant 2,
female, Australian citizen, casual employed, age: 25–29 years)
The socio-economic status of participants lies behind their decision to live in shared room
housing. Hulse and Milligan (2014) recognize that tenants desire to achieve secure
occupancy is influenced by various factors, such as affordability problems in the private
rental market and short-term tenancies. The majority of participants were looking for
immediate housing, with limited knowledge of the rules and regulations governing rental
housing in Australia. In such circumstances, low-income and short-term tenants are will-
ing to forego some aspects of home. Many participants lived in shared room housing
10 Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
because of its financial affordability and flexibility rather than the capacity to provide
secure occupancy. Participants viewed home as a synonym shelter –an affordable place,
during their transitional circumstances (i.e. early stages of migration). An Anglicare
Australia survey indicated that low-income young people associate meanings of home
with affordability (Coombe 2017). Many participants committed to living in substandard
housing and accepted insecure tenancies because it was the only way to find housing
they can afford:
‘In a way secure [tenancy] because the point is that I’m choosing a cheap place –I mean
cheap rent, so there are some risks that come with it, so I have got to accept that.’(Participant
3, male, employer-sponsored visa, from Singapore, full-time employed, age: over 40 years)
The Importance of Material Culture for Home-making
The physical structure, space organization and furniture (re)arrangements of a dwelling
are vital to the performance of day-to-day routines and creation of feelings of home
(Mallett 2004). Participants living in spacious dwellings and those with adequate furniture
attached a higher sense of home and comfort with their housing:
“When you’re sharing a room I mean, you don’t want to be in a small –car-like space. So
compared to other places, I find here the space is pretty good, though the house is old, but
even the drawing room, the kitchen –and not only the room –the bathroom and everything
is larger in size, so that’s–it makes you feel more comfortable and homely.”(Participant 4,
female, international student from India, part-time employed, age: 25–29 years)
The capacity to use and modify material resources (such as furniture) emerged as central
to feelings of home. Participants who were able to (re)organize and use furniture
described stronger feelings of place attachment, with some staying in the dwelling longer
than initially intended. For example, Participant 5 (female, international full-time student
from Malaysia, age: 20–24 years), who took the lease of the property with friends,
reorganized the living room so it was suitable for studying and socialization (Figure 4),
and she continued to live in the same shared room housing for more than 3 years. Though
participants were not allowed to make structural changes (e.g. drilling holes in walls to
hang pictures) in the rental properties –as these minor changes require written permis-
sion from the landlord under tenancy regulations in NSW (Easthope 2014)–participants
who were able to display university calendars, family pictures and personalized wall
coverings described embodied attachment and belonging with their shared homes:
“I feel this is my home because I am living here. I have decorated, I have like make it, made it
my home. Not decorated much, but at least I, yeah, in one word this is, of course, my home
and I feel emotional attachment to it.”(Participant 6, female, international full-time student
from Bangladesh, age: 20–24 years)
However, this is not the case for all participants. Tenants’capacity to (re)organize and
personalize the rooms and dwellings was limited when they were unable to negotiate
with landlords and/or housemates. A limited sense of autonomy over the use and
modification of housing resources had a significant impact on the process of home-
making, especially for tenants in overcrowded housing situations where living rooms
were partitioned, and bedrooms were over-occupied (Figures 5–7). Living rooms are
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 11
important for the creation of social life inside the house, but the absence of a living room
and/or relevant furniture, such as couches and tables, means that residents use their
bedrooms for performing multiple daily routines (eating, studying, sleeping, etc). Limited
and inadequate furniture inside the bedrooms also affected routines and comfort of
home. As an example, some participants compromised to share the same bed with
their roommates, and this material deficiency involved a continuous process of (re)
negotiation of sleeping routine and embodied adjustment during sleep. In these
Figure 4. Spatial organization and furniture arrangements in a living room.
Source: Participant 5, Kensington, 3 August 2018.
Figure 5. A partitioned living room.
Source: Participant 8: Haymarket, 23 June 2018.
12 Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
Figure 6. A crowded/congested bedroom.
Source: Participant 3: Ultimo, 23 June 2018.
Figure 7. Privacy by setting sheets at beds.
Source: Participant 8: Haymarket, 23 June 2018.
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 13
situations, participants did not only have difficulties in performing day-to-day activities,
but they were also required to live in overcrowded and divided spaces, which acted as
a barrier to feelings of home:
“I mean it was really weird because it was very overcrowded, but at the same time it felt very
lonely. Because no one there was interacting with each other. So the thing that I felt was there
were very little spaces to share. Like as a result of dividing the house, separating the rooms
and all of that, there remained very little spaces for us to move, moving to cook, yeah it felt
asphyxiating of some sort. Lonely and over-crowded at the same time, it was weird.”
(Participant 7, male, international student from Colombia, unemployed, age: 18–19 years)
Sharing the same room with multiple individuals also disturbs the notion of privacy.
Previous studies explored how shared housing sites can create a sense of privacy when
tenants can enjoy having their separate bedrooms –a space nobody can enter without
their permission –and use shared spaces, such as living room and kitchens, for social
connections (Heath and Cleaver 2003; Heath et al. 2018). However, room sharing exposes
a number of privacy matters, such as changing clothes, personal talks over the telephone,
sleeping positions and personal time, which interrupt residents’use and freedom of home.
For example, some participants were required to leave the dwelling for private telephone
conversations (especially when the living room is also occupied). Many participants experi-
enced disturbance in their relationships with partners because of a lack of personal space.
Shared room residents strive to maintain privacy in bedrooms through negotiations and
material adjustments. Participant 8 (male, international student from Brazil, age: 30–34
years) described how he and his flatmates maintained privacy through setting sheets
around their beds, while participant 9 (female, international student from China, age:
20–24 years) achieved a sense of privacy through the organization of beds (Figures 7 and 8):
“Privacy is disturbed in a number of areas. I can’t speak much to my family . . . or friends, if
someone else is there. It’s not that I have my personal information that’s going to be leaked,
but it’s not very comfortable. That’s a similar thing with others. That’s the reason, when we
have to talk to someone back home, we just go out. I have to stay out most of the times, if
I have to do something like really private. Other than that, I mean you have to sacrifice a lot of
your private things –private time . . . There’s no choice, when you’re sharing a room.”
(Participant 4, female, international student from India, part-time employed, age: 25–29 years)
Shared room tenants experience many disruptions in the use of space and furniture,
which impact upon their day-to-day living experiences and feelings of home. It was
common for participants living in overcrowded sites to wait for their turn and/or resche-
dule activities, especially related to using bathrooms and kitchens, such as cooking,
showering or laundry, which also restrict feelings of home. As a result of living with
multiple individuals with similar domestic needs (sleeping, cooking, bathing), tensions
arose around the use of limited space and materials:
“I don’t have the freedom for home like whatever I want, whenever I want to go and then the
washroom sometimes it would be occupied in morning, I know that between 7 to 9 [AM] –it
will be fully occupied, it’s just whenever it is empty you just need to go there. You need to
wait in your room, you need to see okay if the door is closed or not so I don’t feel like home
obviously, it’s not the same as home.”(Participant 10, male, international student from India,
part-time employed, age: 25–29 years)
14 Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
Disturbance in multisensory experiences due to an unclean and noisy dwelling also emerged
as a barrier to home-making practices. Brickell (2011) argues that residents might feel
emotionally “homeless”during sensory disruptions. Participants’senseofhomewasdis-
rupted when they heard excessive noises, saw disordered and dirty bedrooms and kitchens
or blocked toilets/bathrooms, and smelt unpleasant odours. Hearing excessive noises dis-
turbed sleeping and studying routines of many participants, usually associated with room-
mates snoring or coughing, turning-on lights or noises during the night. These multisensory
encounters did not only affect participants’performance of home regarding cooking, bath-
ing, sleeping and relaxing, but also emotions and behaviour towards each other. For
example, seeing unclean kitchens (including utensils) and bathrooms is problematic because
it disturbs the notion of home as a clean and healthy space, creates emotional conflicts, and
prompts either a reschedule of activities or an additional cleaning activity:
“Sometimes you’re just like you’ve really had a bad day and you come home and it’s like
worse. You know, you don’t feel like home. It’s just –when I see that the bathroom is not
clean, the kitchen is not clean, and the lights are turned on while nobody is in the room . . .
Sometimes I feel like it is my home and sometimes I just want to move out.”(Participant 11,
female, working holiday maker, full-time student, age: 20–24 years)
Home is a place where one can be messy, grumpy, loud and dirty, yet this freedom is
problematic in shared room housing as it has a strong relational impact on the comfort of
other tenants (Roelofsen 2018). Continual disturbances challenge the notion of home as
a“stable place”, yet these sensory disruptions were often accepted by participants as
a natural factor when living in shared room housing. Shared room housing are ambiguous
Figure 8. Privacy –organization of beds.
Source: Participant 9: Ultimo, 18 April 2018.
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 15
sites of, at the same time, belonging and non-belonging. Just over a third of participants
(39%) in the online survey agreed to the statement “this is my home and I feel emotionally
attached to it”. The material culture of shared room housing sites affects tenants’feelings
of home and performance of day-to-day routines, and their desires to spend time at
home:
“Home is a place where after my work I want to go back, probably have a good meal, relax
and watch TV, and things like that, but right now what I am doing I try to stay out as late as
possible in my office [workplace] and by the time I reach home, it’s already 9 PM, and I take
shower and in the next morning the first thing I do is to go to my office. So it’s not a place
I can say home, it’s just a place where I can sleep overnight, that’s it.”(Participant 3, male,
employer-sponsored visa, from Singapore, full-time employed, age: over 40 years)
The Importance of Social Relations for Home-making
Home is a place of creating and extending social relations, as social relations influence
people’s attachment to their homes and the process of home-making (Fowler and Lipscomb
2010). In addition to economic relationships of sharing rents and utility costs, intra-
household social relationships develop between roommates and housemates while living
in domestic spaces. Participants established social and intimate relations with their room-
mates and housemates, especially those they have emotional compatibility with, through
a variety of practices, such as shared cooking, partying together, grocery shopping, travel-
ling around the region, and playing games and sports. Some participants developed
partner-relationships with their housemates as their mutual understanding and intimacy
grew. The everyday practices that are usually done alone or between related people are
given value by practising them with non-related people in “home”(Roelofsen 2018). Many
participants mentioned their feelings of home were a product of the people they lived with,
and sometimes sought to extend the period of time they lived with those people:
“We had a lot of common points to talk about so that’s how it started . . . It was only me who
used to initiate all the cooking, and people started relying on me, so I felt much like taking
care of them, and then the bond grew . . . So it’s more like a brotherly-hood feeling with
people who stay with me . . . If I leave these people, it’s going to be like –it will take some time
for me to gather friends and all. Imagine if you’re staying with a set of people for one year . ..
and suddenly you move out. You’re going to miss all the things which you had.”(Participant
12, male, international student from India, part-time employed, age: 20–24 years)
Friendships and relationships emerge in these “modern quasi-families”, and they take
care of each other during stress and sickness, meaning room sharing provides
psychosocial advantages of companionship and mutual support. Room sharing served
as a way of making new friends, which helped some participants to deal with home-
sickness, or stress related to conflicts or break-ups with partners. International
migrants described “feelings of understanding”with people of similar cultural back-
grounds living together. Some participants referred to their housemates as “family in
Sydney”and housing as “second home”. Participants mentioned that establishing
social relations provides not only emotional support but financial support as well.
For example, participant 13 (male, international student from India, part-time
employed, age: 20–24 years) described how his housemates supported him by paying
his rent for 1 week when he could not work due to illness. As a result of these
16 Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
practices of emotional and financial care, participants extended their time in particu-
lar dwellings and participated in home-making practices with a higher degree of
commitment. Nonetheless, social relations develop and change over time, and this
evolution impacts feelings of home. For example, the turnover of housemates require
residents to frequently develop new relations, which affected their feelings of home:
“Sometimes [I feel at home], but especially when my previous roommate was here, because
the girl that live(s) in my room and the girl who live(s) in the living room they just moved in.
I think before the previous girls [roommates] moved out I think it’s kind of like home because
we all live together. I think we have a relatively good relationship at that time so it was more
like a home for me. But right now since I don’t know them well and I don’t talk much with
them so I think it may be less like home.”(Participant 9, female, international student from
China, casual employed, age: 20–24 years)
Participants were engaged in numerous shared home-making practices as a household.
These home-making practices include negotiated decisions and investments for sharing
rent and utility bills, purchasing shared furniture, grocery items (toilet/kitchen cleaners,
rice, cooking oil), and house chores, such as cleaning and cooking. Many shared housing
sites represent a “multi-cultural home”, where cultural differences between residents have
a substantial influence on the home-making process. Participants mentioned that living
with people of culturally different backgrounds helped in learning about other cultures as
their roommates and housemates shared personal stories and food. Nonetheless, the
issues of language barriers, religious dietary restrictions, heterogeneous beliefs and living
habits arose; all of which affected shared home-making practices. Clark et al. (2018) argue
that disputes can arise between people of different profiles and personalities over how
shared home should be structured, including the degree of intimacy and standard of
cleanliness and noise levels. In this sense, shared home encounters multiple barriers
which can lead to home unmaking. For example, frequent turnover of housemates,
varying economic circumstances, cultural differences and divergent motivations for living
in shared housing affect shared home-making practices (Jacobs and Gabriel 2013). Not
every tenant participates in mutual decision-making, household chores or has a sense of
attachment with the shared household. For some participants, shared room housing was
not worthy of commitment and investment, whether financial or emotional, because of its
short-term or undefined tenure duration and frequent turnover of roommates and house-
mates. For some, investing in collective home-making practices is only suitable if these are
beneficial for the future:
“Because for me staying in this house, of course, it’s temporary. It’s not long, it’s not 10 years
or anything. The fact that I know some of them are graduating soon so if, yeah, I mean they
might be moving out any time so it’sdifficult to invest in emotional support and then they
move out. Yeah. I think that’s why, the fact that it’s temporary.”(Participant 14, male,
temporary graduate visa, from Malaysia casual employed, age: 20–24 years)
Furthermore, friendships and social relations are vulnerable to estrangement as a single
conflict (most likely to happen because of complex financial, material and social dealings)
can destroy previously positive relationships (Clark et al. 2018). Living with strangers is
challenging because it affects residents’understanding and trust of their surroundings and
the type of response required, especially in the beginning, when they move in or when new
housemates move in. For example, a total of eight participants mentioned an incident of
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 17
theft. They mentioned the difficulty in establishing trust with their roommates and house-
mates when they saw their shampoo, tissues or food stolen. Thus, the idea of home as a safe
and secure place can be challenged in shared room housing. As in the case for other
housing types, the issues of violent conflicts, emotional abuse, and lack of personal safety
can arise between residents in shared room (and house) arrangements (Clark et al. 2017).
One participant reported a sexual assault. Such an incident presented her with an extreme
case of violence, lack of safety, and ontologically insecure home. Later, she moved to
another shared housing site, where she met her partner and stayed there for 5 years.
Heath et al. (2018) argue that the capacity of shared housing to sustain as home depends
on the nature and quality of social relationships that exist there, which are influenced by
financial, material or emotional resources available for home-making. Shared room housing
practices reflect the fluid nature of home. “Sometimes”was one of the most commonly used
words by participants. These temporalities influence how home is processed and imagined:
“Sometimes there can be some kind of stress and competition for the clothes and the dryer,
because it’s like –because imagine in a small flat you have so many people and then we also
need to wash our clothes –during weekends a lot of people wash . . . Sometimes the
competition for these resources, like washing machine and dryer, can lead to kind of constant
conflict.”(Participant 3, male, employer sponsored visa, from Singapore, full-time employed,
age: over 40 years)
Conclusion
The paper has focused on tenants’experiences and engagement with the material and
social elements of home in shared room housing. “Home”comes in many forms. Once
perceived as a uniform, familial and privatized space, home is now acknowledged as a far
more challenging entity of dependence and uncertainty, ongoing disruption (both material
and emotional), and a continuous process of (re)negotiation. Insecure tenancies, the inabil-
ity to configure and use the material elements of the dwelling (such as furniture and
appliances) and conflicts with roommates or housemates all restrict shared room tenants’
home-making practices. These tenants, nonetheless, do engage in the process of shared
and individual home-making, which include financial commitments, mutual emotional
support, and tolerance. The shared home is a relational space where feelings of home are
produced spatially, materially and socially. The emotions and personal motivations of
individual tenants are important in mediating the material manifestations and social con-
nections central to home. As is the case for other tenures where the length of residence is
important for developing a sense of home, the short-term or transitional nature of the
shared room tenancy and the rapid turnover of roommates or housemates emerges as
a barrier for home-making for some tenants.
This study reveals both positive and negative experiences of shared room homes. At one
extreme, tenants in shared room housing, who have insecure occupancies, are at risk of
becoming or have been homeless, either emotionally or physically. Low-income migrants
are particularly vulnerable to experience exploitative housing conditions by paying high
rents for overcrowded shared rooms, and live in constant fear of conflict, eviction and
losing bond deposits. These housing conditions meet the ABS criteria of “homelessness”in
Australia and require policy attention. Furthermore, many tenants are forced to move
following a conflict within the dwelling, need to go outside the dwelling for private
18 Z. NASREEN AND K. J. RUMING
activities (such as telephone calls) and, as a result, spend as much time away from the
dwelling as possible. All of which limit feelings of home, and negatively impact upon
relationships both inside and outside the shared home. Alternatively, tenants in spacious
and welcoming dwellings exercise a sense of autonomy and are able to privatize and
personalize spaces to express self-identities, extend tenancies to live with new “family-like”
friends, and receive financial and psychological support from roommates and housemates
who were initially strangers. There is no single experience of home in shared room housing,
rather feelings of home are fluid and in a continuous process of making and unmaking.
Shared room housing might be a minority experience, but for individuals involved it is
both critical and meaningful (Heath et al. 2018). Living with non-related roommates and
housemates of contrasting lifestyles lead residents to emotionally restrained and limited
autonomy of home, but also these sharers engage in quasi-family practices and produce
meaningful relationships. These short-to-medium-term, yet transformative, housing experi-
ences can leave a long-term impact on memories and meanings of home and sense of
ontological security. Shared households are (often) formed through financial necessity, but
it is an important and creative form of housing for those marginalized from the formal
housing markets. The dominant imaginaries of home exclude and mask the vital questions
of how people make home in divergent housing pathways (Maalsen 2018). Such marginal
housing experiences are rarely acknowledged in the prevailing societal norms and policy-
making discourses. Thus, it is vital that researchers bring these experiencesto light.
Notes
1. Households in the lowest 40% of income distribution, who pay more than 30% of their gross
pre-tax income on home loan repayments are considered in “mortgage stress”.
2. Households in the lowest 40% of income distribution, who spend more than 30% of their
gross income on rents are considered in “rental stress”.
3. “No grounds”evictions allow landlords to evict a tenant at the end of a fixed-term lease, or
during an ongoing lease, without giving any reason.
4. In New South Wales (NSW), tenants pay up to 4 weeks rent to the landlord/landlord’sagent as
a bond deposit against any failure to comply with the tenancy agreement. The landlord/
landlord’s agent must deposit that amount with the Commissioner/Director-General for Fair
Trading, Department of Services under the Residential Tenancy Act, 2010.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Zahra Nasreen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6626-9606
Kristian. J. Ruming http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1065-9530
HOUSING, THEORY AND SOCIETY 19
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