Under one roof

04/28/21

Recently, there's been a lot of talk about living in group houses. These co-living arrangements are just that - a group of people live together under one roof. Like geodes, they come in different arrangements and sizes, and there's something out there for everyone.

Group living arrangements can be totally amazing, even transformative. I think they provide the best opportunity to make those lifelong friendships you can only have by living intimately together.

What to watch out for

A concerning recent trend is the use of such houses as an intellectual and social status symbol. We get humble brags:

This is worrying because it detracts from the point of group houses. There's nothing special about being in one geographic place over another. The value is in the community, the unique environment you get when you put a cocktail of specific people together under one roof. It's special because of the ideas you learn and the friends you meet and the memories you make. All that dissapears when the house gets decomposed to a "cool place" to live in.

A house that focuses on clout and external validation sets a tone that makes it difficult to be authentic and organic. If you are surrounded by people who are in the place just so they can say they've been there, you most likely won't get much good out of it.

What makes a house is the people within it. If people aren't coming for the experience, then it won't manifest within the house.

To be clear, in no am I trying to gate-keep the awesome opportunity of group houses. I hope everyone gets to do them, but it should be a truly safe, community oriented experience that is honest with its values and purpose.

When finding housemates, I find that using The Damn Test to be a helpful litmus test on whether I align with someone and would like to live with them.

Joining one

Ok, so being in a good house is paramount to having a good experience. How do I make sure I'm in the right house? And if I find the right house, how can I be accepted to join as a resident?

Many friends from Waterloo reached out to me with the same questions, and it seems that there are two main problems here:

1. It's hard to find out about these houses in the first place
2. It's hard to join these houses because they are very space-limited

To find out about houses, you have to be either well connected or lucky. I wasn't well connected when I found about School 2.0: I heard about it by chance from a hackathon mailing list, and I only joined the hackathon after a stranger cold-emailed me about the opportunity in the first place (thanks Avery!).

There's also an element of luck involved when you try to get a spot in a house, since interviews can only sample a small part of what someone is like, and sometimes the house is already full by the time you hear about it. To be honest, there aren't many group houses at all in Canada at the moment.

The trick to guarantee that you are in your favorite house is actually to start one. Currently it seems that there is much more demand than supply - if you want to join a house and can't, then surely there are so so many others who feel the same. Just this past month, 6 people reached out to me, asking me about any upcoming group living arrangements. If there's enough interest, I'm thinking of building something to connect people to form houses in Canada. Feel free to drop me a message if you'd like to see something like this.

Some houses

If you're looking for existing houses to live in or draw inspiration from, I've put together an archive of the good houses I know of, you can check it out here.