Lintal: Shared Housing as a Solution to Rural Housing Crisis
In Shared Housing as a Missing Middle Solution for Rural Communities, Alison Lintal (Penn State Dickinson School of Law) discusses shared housing arrangements as a potential solution to the housing crisis for rural communities facing shifting demographics. In particular, Lintal identifies increasing migration into some rural communities from urban areas, including more diverse residents. Lintal identifies this growing diversity, combined with deteriorating housing stock, high development costs, and lack of affordable options in many rural communities, as the reasons for needing more focus on new rural housing options.
Shared housing refers, generally, to denser alternatives to single-family housing that are otherwise similar in scale to single-family homes—including, for example, smaller multi-unit or duplex housing options. According to Lintal, these kinds of affordable multi-household housing options could be a good fit to infill rural housing stock where demand outpaces supply, but Lintal asserts that these options are generally unavailable in many rural communities. Lintal’s research presents the history of shared housing in rural spaces while also addressing the legal and social obstacles to future implementation.
Lintal provides suggestions for what modern-day shared housing arrangements might look like in a rural context and identifies the potential obstacles that exist. The author focuses on restrictive zoning provisions that can exclude shared housing arrangements and the lack of any kind of constitutional protections for shared housing arrangements. Using rural jurisdictions in Pennsylvania as an illustrative case study, Lintal shows how municipal ordinances and definitions related to single-family housing vary but often require that occupants of a dwelling be related by “blood, marriage, or adoption.” She also addresses the financial restraints of the aging rural population and the lack of federal or state-funded housing programs. The author further recognizes the exceptions built into the Fair Housing Act for landlords who rent rooms in their homes. In these shared housing situations, landlords are often free to choose renters according to their personal preferences, opening the door for increased discrimination.
Ultimately, Lintal stresses the necessity of addressing the legal obstacles to implementing shared housing programs and urges government actors to overcome these obstacles to provide housing solutions, especially in rural areas where new affordable housing development faces barriers and alternative solutions are needed. Arguing that shared housing is a “missing middle solution,” Lintal recommends changing municipal zoning ordinances to allow multi-family dwellings in single-family zones and recommends government incentive programs to fund and encourage shared housing arrangements in rural spaces.
