Opinions and Shared Housing

As a college student from New York, I hear the same thing over and over: rent is insane. Friends are squeezing into tiny apartments, paying way too much to live far from campus, or just assuming they’ll have to leave the city after graduation. So when I saw that the city held a hearing on shared housing this December, it caught my attention.

On December 2, 2025, NYC’s housing department went before City Council to talk about bringing back shared housing as a real, legal housing option. Not Airbnb-style setups or sketchy roommate situations, but purpose-built housing where people have private bedrooms and share kitchens or common spaces, all under clear safety rules.

What surprised me most is that this isn’t some new experiment. New York used to have a lot of shared housing in the form of boarding houses and SROs. They were affordable, flexible, and especially helpful for single adults, students, and workers just starting out. Over time, zoning and building rules basically wiped them out. Now we’re left with a housing market that mostly assumes everyone can afford a studio or one-bedroom, which just isn’t true.

At the hearing, the city talked about a Shared Housing Roadmap that tries to fix this. The idea is to remove outdated rules that make shared housing illegal to build, while still keeping strong safety standards and tenant protections. There’s also a bill in City Council that would update building codes so shared housing can actually be constructed legally, instead of existing in gray areas.

From a student perspective, this makes a lot of sense. Not everyone wants or needs their own apartment. Plenty of people would gladly trade a private kitchen for lower rent, better location, or more community. Shared housing wouldn’t solve the entire housing crisis, but it could create a missing middle option between dorms, shelters, and expensive apartments.

The city was clear that this wouldn’t replace family housing or supportive housing. It’s just another tool. But honestly, that’s kind of the point. New York’s housing crisis is so bad that we need more tools, not fewer.

If NYC is serious about keeping young people, students, and early-career workers here, it has to stop pretending that the current housing types work for everyone. Shared housing isn’t radical. It’s practical. And for people like me who want to build a future in this city, it feels like a step in the right direction.