Group Living Challenges Single-Family Norms, and That's Okay

In Slate, Henry Grabar chronicles the demise of a co-op in Boulder that symbolized a conflict between young adults trying to make ends meet and "the old guard—slow-growth homeowners who moved here decades ago." 

In many cities across the United States, groups of friends and acquaintances who can't afford to rent or buy homes on their own are moving into houses together, Grabar writes:

High rents and the limits of the housing stock have forced tenants—a generation of young people and immigrants—into larger, underused homes ill-suited (or too expensive) for America’s shrinking families.

But this common living arrangement is illegal in many cities under occupancy laws limiting the number of unrelated adults who can live together.

By targeting the legal relationship of cohabitants instead of their living conditions, Grabar notes, such ordinances don't protect safety but rather police personal relationships through a particular definition of legal terms like "family" and "household."

"Distinct from overcrowding laws that regulate the amount of space per person, the occupancy law is a widespread modern policy of social preference, not of public health or safety," he writes.

While advocacy has convinced Boulder to begin reconsidering its approach to co-ops, Grabar urges that other adaptations to the housing market that are not university town trends not be thrown under the bus.

Legalizing co-ops won’t do much for the city’s other illegal tenants, especially if it’s part of a bargain that renews enforcement on other illegally occupied residences.