# Motivations for participation in nonprofit homeshare programs in the United States: a qualitative study with older home providers and home seekers

## TL;DR

This study explores why older adults and others participate in nonprofit homesharing programs in the U.S., revealing motivations like financial needs, companionship, and altruism.

## Contribution

The study provides new qualitative insights into motivations for homesharing participation, an understudied housing strategy for older adults.

## Key findings

- Participants cited financial motivations, companionship, and altruism as key reasons for joining homesharing programs.
- Disasters or life changes and the need for administrative support also influenced participation decisions.
- Home providers were more likely to be female and older compared to home seekers.

## Abstract

Homesharing provides a strategy for addressing housing insecurity by pairing home providers, often older adults, with an extra room in their house with home seekers needing housing. Despite 5 decades of use, research on this intervention remains limited. This study aims to build on this sparse scholarship to provide insight into the motivations for participating as either home seekers or home providers.

This community-engaged qualitative project includes data from 24 in-depth interviews and short demographic surveys with a diverse group of home providers (n = 13) and home seekers (n = 11) recruited from 2 nonprofit homesharing organizations. Interviews were recorded and professionally transcribed. The researchers used constant comparison techniques to identify patterns and unique perspectives in the transcripts.

Home providers and home seekers had a mean age of 67.92 (SD = 9.39) and 52.09 (SD = 19.03), respectively and were racially/ethnically diverse. The overall sample was primarily female (71%), though more home providers were female (85%) than home seekers (55%). Participants described a range of motivations for participating in homesharing, including financial motivations, the desire for companionship, the result of a disaster or life change, the desire for a task exchange arrangement, the need for administrative/third-party support for housing (including a need for safety and security), and altruistic reasons.

This article provides important new data in a vastly understudied area that can inform policy and practice to support affordable housing options for older adults—particularly through nonprofit homesharing programs.