Shared homes cut costs and ease loneliness, residents say

Living with friends has helped four young men reduce their housing costs and build close relationships, they told Yle. Shared housing remains relatively uncommon among young adults in Finland, despite rising housing expenses and loneliness.

Aukusti Harju, Jan Haapanen, Oskar Strauss and Jonne Karttunen share an apartment in Helsinki’s Vallila district. Strauss was away on a course trip to Kenya when Yle visited.

“It would be quite bleak to live alone,” Karttunen said.

More money for everyday life

The idea of sharing a home was initially driven by financial considerations. Harju said the men currently pay about two-thirds of what they would pay if they lived alone.

The lower housing costs have meant that Harju does not need to work alongside his studies. He mainly does temporary work during the summer and otherwise lives on student support and savings from his summer jobs.

Many young people are now worried about being able to afford their housing costs. In a survey conducted by the Ministry of the Environment last year, 37 percent of people living alone said they were managing their housing costs fairly or very poorly. That was 12 percentage points more than in 2020.

Among people living in households with several residents, 24 percent said they were managing their housing costs fairly or very poorly, an increase of nine percentage points in five years.

More than 60 percent of respondents had, for example, cut back on other areas of life, relied on help from relatives or moved to a cheaper home to manage their housing costs.

Sharing a home leaves more money for other things, according to the residents.

“If you live in a shared home and work, you quickly have money left over, so you can, for example, go travelling,” Karttunen said.

A relationship resembling siblings

The benefits of living together are not limited to money, the men said.

“It feels really important to live with people. You develop a very strong relationship compared with an ordinary friendship,” Karttunen said.

He compared the close relationship to that between siblings. Karttunen has lived with Harju for three years. The apartment in Vallila became part of the arrangement a year ago, and Haapanen was the most recent addition.

The men share more with one another than they do with other friends.

“If there have been more challenging situations in life, there has always been someone nearby to share things with on a daily basis. That is immensely valuable,” Karttunen said.

“And they do not have to be serious things. After a day at school, while cooking in the kitchen, you can say that you missed the bus and had a bad lecture,” Harju added.

The sibling-like relationship sometimes includes teasing, including comments about the dishes or other matters in a way that the other person knows will be irritating.

But the residents do not let disagreements drag on.

“We run into each other all the time. It would be a little strange if there were some tension hanging over us. You learn to be honest and to stand up for your own boundaries,” Haapanen said.

Company is good for people

Harju believes that living together more widely in Finland could improve young people’s wellbeing.

“I think it is good for people to do things for others and know that they will help you when necessary,” he said.

Shared housing remains relatively rare in Finland, although it is the norm in many European countries. The share of young adults living with someone other than a partner or family member has risen from six percent to 12 percent over the past five years, according to the Ministry of the Environment’s survey.

That means slightly more than one in ten young adults in Finland live in a shared home. Government cuts to benefits and increasing loneliness have not substantially changed housing patterns.