HPD's Shared Housing Roadmap

The Shared Housing Roadmap is a report that lays out a path for reintroducing shared housing as one means of creating more housing options and opportunities for single New Yorkers. It builds on the success of the recently passed City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which removed zoning barriers to shared housing. Incorporating lessons learned from historic shared models, the Roadmap charts a strategy for removing the remaining code, financial, and operational barriers to enable shared housing that ensures robust design, management, and tenant protection standards. The report accompanies and contextualizes legislative amendments that are being introduced to remove code-related hurdles in the New York City Housing Maintenance Code, Building Code, and Fire Code. 

What is shared housing?

Shared housing is two or more independently occupied rooms that share living facilities, like bathrooms and kitchens. Historically, shared housing models, like boarding houses and single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels, made up a substantial portion of the affordable housing choices in New York City. In the mid-1950s, in response to poor living conditions, New York City and State enacted legislation that encouraged the conversion of shared housing and stifled the creation of new shared housing.

Today, thousands of single New Yorkers live with roommates, and New York City is seeing the rise of a burgeoning unregulated shared housing market, where professional operators offer individual rooms for rent, but do not afford the people living in these rooms the tenant protections guaranteed under local and state laws. Shared housing would fill a gap in the rental market, but current housing and building code restrictions effectively ban all shared housing models. 

Why shared housing?

• Addresses the mismatch between population demographics and housing stock. The number of single-person households is increasing rapidly, while the number of studios and one-bedrooms is not keeping pace. Shared housing can fill this gap by creating purpose-built housing for single adults, especially those who want more privacy and independence than living with roommates but are still looking for community in their housing.   

• Increases tenant protections for renters currently living in informal shared housing. The Shared Housing Roadmap introduces a pathway for legalizing existing unregulated shared housing market. Tenants in legalized shared housing could have a lease for an individual room and new protections from eviction. They would also benefit from new safety requirements and housing quality enforcement. 

• Facilitates adaptive reuse. By clustering bathrooms and kitchens around pre-existing plumbing networks, which are usually centrally located in commercial buildings, shared housing can offer some cost savings over the conversion to traditional units. The conversions tax credit that was recently enacted by the state legislature would facilitate affordable shared housing.   

• Reduces pressure on family-sized apartments. Shared housing can provide a flexible and affordable housing option for many New Yorkers and newcomers who would otherwise split multi-bedroom units with roommates to keep housing costs affordable. Families today are competing with shared households with multiple incomes.   

• Serves households with diverse needs. Shared housing can provide community and services for households who may be isolated or vulnerable in traditional housing. This could include youth aging out of the foster-care system, older New Yorkers who want to maintain semi-independent living, or single parents who find support through communal caregiving.  

• Shared housing can add a new tool to the affordable housing toolkit. Shared housing can reduce costs and stretch city subsidies further, creating more affordable units for each dollar of subsidy or tax incentive. 

What are the goals of the Shared Housing Roadmap?

Through the Shared Housing Roadmap, HPD seeks to ensure that the reintroduction of shared housing is guided by thoughtful design and operations practices to promote tenant protections and safety. City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, passed in December 2024, eased zoning restrictions. HPD is advancing additional strategies to implement the Roadmap:  

• Drafting legislation to address the challenges in the Housing Maintenance Code, Building Code, and Fire Code  

• Developing guidance to finance affordable shared housing models  

• Publishing guidance to align building operations and management policies with best practices and existing tenant protections