Diverse Forms of Caregiving through Homeshare Programs with Older Adults

Background and Purpose: Older adults comprise the fastest-growing group of people experiencing homelessness in the United States (Henderson et al., 2023; Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2023; Kushel, 2022). Many older adults also have higher caregiving needs, in part, due to increased levels of social isolation, loneliness, and health issues (NASEM, 2020). These issues are often interconnected in complex ways for older adults. This study examines how two homeshare programs address these myriad issues for older adults by posing the following research question: How do homeshare participants engage in caregiving? Homeshare programs use third party organizations to match home seekers with home providers who have available space in their homes to rent.

Methods: This study employed community-engaged, in-depth interviews (45-60 min) of participants in two homeshare organizations in Northern California and organizational staff (n=30). Participants comprised both home providers and home seekers. Organizational staff comprised individuals knowledgeable about the policies, procedures, and practices of the organizational homeshare programs. Data also includes brief survey responses from a post-interview demographic survey. Researchers conducted thematic data analysis with the qualitative software program Dedoose and produced regular research memos to identify themes across the data. The research team regularly met with the participating homeshare organizations to discuss data collection (e.g., recruitment), data analysis (e.g., emerging themes), and contextualize the findings for policy and practice implications.

Results: While both homeshare organizations offer rental agreements where home seekers can provide basic caregiving for reduced rent, few homeshare participants had such formal rental agreements. However, data revealed that caregiving emerged in important ways in many of the homeshare partnerships. Five key themes emerged: (1) reciprocal caregiving; (2) expansive caregiving; (3) financial caregiving; (4) emergent caregiving, and (5) liable caregiving. One group engaged in reciprocal caregiving by providing emotional, physical, or nutritional support to each other. A second group engaged in expansive caregiving, in which the home seeker (but occasionally the home provider) provided companionship or social support in meaningful ways to the participant but did not view this necessarily as support. A third group described financial caregiving, in which both home providers and home seekers described how formal negotiated homeshare arrangements (e.g., reduced rent, supplemental income) provided critical sources of support to help them live near their workplaces or age in place. A fourth group described emergent caregiving in which participants anticipated a need for future support for the home provider. The final group comprised third party staff who described liable caregiving in which they discussed concerns about liability around how caregiving is defined in the program.

Conclusions and Implications: Very few participants described the supports they received and provided as “caregiving,” yet many described how meaningful these forms of support were to help them maintain their health and wellbeing. Homeshare provides a promising program that can help address rising concerns regarding housing instability and care needs by blending housing support and social care. As these issues gain more attention, homeshare programs present an important model for consideration from policymakers and social work practitioners.