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Take In A Stranger, Keep A House

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The New York Times

Published: August 3, 2008

BALTIMORE - When Barbara Terry fell behind on her mortgage payments earlier this year, she did the previously unthinkable. Through a local housing organization, she and her daughter, Imani, 9, rented part of their single-family house to a stranger.

"I had to do something," said Terry, 46, who helps formerly homeless people move into new housing. "I said, I am not going to lose this house. Thinking about having a stranger was not a pleasant thought. I have a daughter. But the positive part was that I needed extra help, and I wanted to help someone."

With residential mortgage foreclosures still on the rise, more homeowners nationwide are considering Terry's choice: whether to take in a boarder to keep their homes. Modest but growing numbers are turning to agencies nationwide such as the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center Homesharing Program in Baltimore, which screens boarders to find appropriate matches and relieve some of the fear of strangers.

"We're seeing greater numbers of marginal people," said Kirby Dunn, executive director of HomeShare Vermont, one of several hundred programs across the country that were formed since the 1980s to help elderly or disabled homeowners exchange spare rooms for income or, more often, help around the house, but are now being pressed to meet different needs.

"Historically," Dunn said, "the people who come to us have been looking for someone to provide services in the home. But now, money is the bigger issue for folks. There's definitely an increase in people looking for a revenue stream."

Dunn said volume at the agency was up this year, with three or four times as many people seeking rooms as seeking boarders.

Women Share Occasional Meals

On a recent Saturday morning, while Terry attended a training session at her church, Katherine Ongiri, 47, celebrated her first week of living in Terry's two-story house, where she pays $500 a month, in weekly installments. The women work different schedules, but have shared an occasional meal. Terry helped Ongiri, who does not drive, get her check cashed, and treated her to lunch at Burger King.

"She's good company," Terry said. "And I don't mind helping because I know how hard it is when you've got to take the bus because I've been there."

Ongiri said of Terry and her daughter, "I don't mind helping her keep a roof over that girl's head because I know what it's like."

The two women's routes to St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, which culminated in Ongiri's moving into Terry's attic, describe the multiple hazards of the current economic downturn: stagnant wages, rising energy and food prices, exotic mortgages, job insecurity, neighborhood instability and the challenges for single working women to find safe environments for themselves and their children.

"A lot of prayer comes in," Terry said. "You don't want someone to try to take over, or cause problems once they get a foot in the door."

Terry bought her home six years ago, in a hilly neighborhood in northeast Baltimore, for $92,000, with a government-backed mortgage and monthly payments of about $800. She had never owned a home before, and was excited to move out of subsidized housing.

After two refinance loans, like many homeowners she does not understand her current mortgage, which is an interest-only loan. What she knows is that her payments are now more than $1,000 per month, and that she cannot afford them.

"Everything was going up except my paycheck," Terry said.

Many Owners Unwilling To Rent

Ongiri had housing and financial problems of her own. Earlier this year, after a cut in her income - she works as an airport wheelchair escort, for $6.25 an hour plus tips - she moved into a rented room, only to learn the house was in foreclosure. When she moved into another rented room in a rougher part of town, she discovered that the other residents were three men.

"It could've been very unsafe for me," she said. "I wasn't afraid, but I was uncomfortable."

Roy Miller, a housing counselor at nearby Belair-Edison Neighborhood Inc., said most of the distressed homeowners he saw were unwilling to rent part of their houses to strangers, especially if there were children at home.

Most home-sharing agencies have fewer than 100 matches at any time.

But Terry did not know where else to turn. She was behind on mortgage payments, but the idea of placing an advertisement in the newspaper or online scared her - anyone might show up at her door. Terry turned to St. Ambrose, she said, on the advice of her supervisor, who said the agency would screen potential housemates to find a match.

Like other home-sharing agencies, St. Ambrose conducts background checks on both parties, screening out people with criminal records or histories of drug or alcohol abuse, or those who cannot afford to be stable homeowners or renters. A 10-point questionnaire sorts candidates' feelings about pets, smoking, overnight guests and other points of compatibility.

"So far we've had no bodily damage," said Annette Brennan, the program's director. "I say that quietly so as not to jinx it."

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