Housing Harmonies
Welcome to Housing Harmonies, a webcast and network café inspired by musical harmony, where sounds come together to create something new, positive, pleasant. We aim to bring people in to harmonize with us, to share, to learn, and to collaborate.
Each episode draws from one or more conversations with people in the housing ecosystem. Through discussion and commentary, we bring a neuroinclusive lens to housing. After the release of an episode, we schedule and host a Network Café, inviting folx to come together and further discuss the topic of the episode.
Episode theme
We recently connected with Helen Ries from Siblings Canada and Yvonne Spicer, a self-advocate to talk about housing. During our conversations, we were captivated by both their experiences and perspectives on co-living. Therefore, for this episode, we took excerpts from those chats to share their stories and discuss some of the important considerations individuals and families need to attend to.
Living with parents or siblings
Helen first shared that siblings often take on a caregiver responsibility for their brothers or sisters when their parents pass, with survey data also showing housing as a priority. She refers to disabilities during our conversation because Siblings Canada’s original mandate focused on intellectual and developmental disabilities, however, now their scope and services are much broader.
Feasibility and finances
Sometimes it is financially necessary to live with another person so that household expenses are shared. Four years ago, Yvonne moved in with her mom to help her out. She shared with us her financial situation if she were not able to live with her mom.
Helen shares work that Siblings Canada is embarking on to advocate for policy that would make it easier for siblings considering co-living arrangements.
Co-living can be a big change
When considering moving and starting to live together, Helen describes how individual supports and services tend not to be easily transferred over, particularly across different jurisdictions. She stresses the need to be prepared but also flexible as changes are inevitable.
However, there are positives to co-living as well, for example, Yvonne spoke about her pets or fur babies and how they support both her and her mom.
Relationships are two-way
Cultural and societal expectations
Unlike expectations that parents care for their children, different societal and cultural expectations may exist for siblings and other caregivers. Co-living may be an option, an expectation, or neither.
Helen elaborates on this and raises questions for future work in understanding and supporting co-living arrangements.
Network Café
During the Network Café, we invite attendees to take turns sharing experiences and solutions. We will use the following questions as a guide for our conversations:
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- What parts of Yvonne’s or Helen’s story resonated with you?
- What positive experiences have you had with co-living or sharing spaces?
- What logistics do cohabitants have to work through to make co-living arrangements successful?
We would like to thank Yvonne and Helen for taking their time to share their experiences with us.
We welcome suggestions for topics to discuss. Please connect with us through our online Contact page.
Past webcasts
We welcome questions and feedback. Please leave us a message in the form.