Pierce County homeowners open up spare rooms to curb homelessness
Wayne Cooke is an 88-year-old Graham homeowner.
His one-acre property on a gravel hilltop became a lonely place after his wife died in 2012. Cooke felt more isolated after he had to give up his driver’s license due to worsening vision.
Cooke discovered an advertisement for Shared Housing Services, a home-share nonprofit that pairs those with spare room to those on the brink of homelessness or those already experiencing homelessness, and called.
The nonprofit connected him with 56-year-old Mandy Smalldridge in 2014, and the two have been roommates since. Shared Housing Services is a Pierce County nonprofit that local service providers say has been alleviating the housing crisis. Mike Yoder, executive director of Associated Ministries of Tacoma-Pierce County, said it’s been working across the county.
“Home-sharing is a key solution for a whole spectrum of people,” he told The News Tribune.
Cooke decided to make rent free for Smalldridge in exchange for two “errand days.” She began to drive Cooke twice a week to the doctor’s office and grocery store, where she reads the food labels to him.
“She willingly helps me. It feels comfortable having her in the house,” Cooke said. “She has definitely been a housemate I am very fortunate to have.”
Smalldridge was tired of living in a friend’s home and began looking for places. Rent was too expensive for her fixed income, so she called Shared Housing Services. She lives in one of Cooke’s spare rooms, has a bathroom across the hall and renamed another open room “the craft room.”
“It’s been really good. We are very close. We care a lot about each other,” she said. “We both help each other in different ways.”
Mark Merill, Shared Housing Services’ executive director, said one of their biggest struggles is getting enough homeowners to sign up. He estimated the agency receives applications for about 50 or more people seeking housing a month and only about five or six homeowners.
He said shared housing is unique in its ability to help folks before they become unstable or end up homeless because they aren’t waiting on places to be built.
“Shared housing is a key component in addressing affordable housing and also our senior living crisis,” Merrill said.
Merrill estimates his organization has helped house between 150 to 160 people this year. Yoder said that accounts for about 20 percent of all of Pierce County’s permanent placements.
Rather than waiting for affordable housing to open up, Yoder said, the program fills extra rooms Pierce County already has.
Associated Ministries will connect those who need housing to programs like Shared Housing Services. Yoder calls SHS is a “win-win situation” because it allows homeowners to make an extra income while providing inexpensive housing to folks who need it.
“Home sharing is an ideal situation for those at the lowest level,” he said. “It’s the only thing that works with housing and rental prices where they’re at, and housing vouchers and rental caps have years-long waiting lists.”
Cooke said he believes home sharing is an answer to the homelessness crisis.
“It helps people who would otherwise not have a home,” he said. “Some just don’t make enough to pay rent.”
Student housing
Shared Housing Services also focuses on a demographic grappling with affordable housing: students.
Merill said service providers are seeing more and more college students facing insecure housing because they can’t afford the market rate. The nonprofit founded a program this year, “Husky2Husky,” to place University of Washington Tacoma students in spare rooms of faculty or alumni.
Tacoma Community College, Bates Technical College, Pierce College and Clover Park Technical College have now joined to help connect college students to housing. Merrill said his organization has helped 14 students find housing this semester.
Bill and Noel Hagens opened their home to a Bates Technical College student, Alexis Cheeseboro.
“We were looking at the extra bedrooms, thinking how could they be made helpful for other people,” Noel Hagens said.
Cheeseboro has been living with the couple for about four months, and the Hagens have enjoyed her presence around the house.
“It’s easier for me to save money if I’m living with roommates as opposed to living by myself,” Cheeseboro said.
The Pierce County Library System has partnered with Shared Housing Services to provide public forums.
A lot of the homeless services are in Tacoma, so this program connects those experiencing homelessness in Pierce County outside of the city to homes already available, said Mary Getchell, library spokesperson.
“We thought what a great opportunity,” she said. “It helps the senior citizen — or the adult child who knows they need someone — the empty nester, or the young couple who needs to rent a room to pay mortgage payments.”
Learn more
▪ Lakewood Pierce County Library, 6300 Wildaire Road SW, Jan. 8, 2-4 p.m.
▪ Summit Pierce County Library, 5107 112th St. E., Tacoma, March 4, 2-4 p.m.
▪ Gig Harbor Pierce County Library, 4424 Point Fosdick Dr., March 18, 2:30-4:30 p.m.
▪ University Place Pierce County Library, 3609 Market Place W. Suite 100, March 25, 2-4 p.m.
