Finding a place to live is difficult, and this is especially true for graduating students in this economy. Home Share Now is an organization that might have the answer you are looking for, if you are looking to save some money, and perhaps make a new friend or two.

As the name of the organization implies, home sharing is an option for those looking for a place to live. Simply put, home sharing is taking up residence in a home in exchange for help on the part of the home-seeker. The homeowner, for whatever reason, usually has a spare room or other living arrangements, and will offers free or low-cost accommodation to the home-seeker in exchange for an agreed level of aid and/or money. The aid that a home-seeker might have to provide for a homeowner varies, but must be agreed upon and signed into contract before both parties enter into their new joint living arrangement. Most tasks are pretty mundane, and can range from walking any pets the homeowner might have to getting groceries, mowing the lawn, or simple companionship.

Home sharing seems quite popular in Europe, and the practice has been coming over to America for some time. In the case of Home Shares Now, the tale of their beginning is a simple, if effective origin story. According to the organization, an elderly resident of Montpelier asked their Housing Task Force why there wasn’t a home sharing program to serve central Vermont back in 2001. The suggestion was taken to heart, which led to the creation of Home Share of Central Vermont, a subset of the Central Vermont Council on Aging. This continued from 2003 to 2010, and the number of homeowner and home-seeker participants grew quickly—so much so that reorganization had to occur, and Home Share of Central Vermont became Home Share Now.

While the Barre location is the mother office, a Morrisville branch of Home Share Now has been operating for two years. Communications Director Amy Noyes is in charge of this branch, and is the primary person to speak to for those interested in the option of shared living.

“A lot of people think [home sharing] is taking care of an old person so they don’t have to go to a nursing home, and that just isn’t the case,” said Noyes when discussing the living arrangements that are available. While some of the homeowners looking for home-seekers might be elderly, there is a wide variety of homeowners to match up potential home sharers with. Noyes hopes to change the mindset that the alternative nursing home is the state of home sharing, and that it is a perfectly normal way of maintaining a residence. It is a very affordable option of living as well. According to Noyes, the average monthly cost of apartment renting in the local area is around $800. With home sharing, if the home owner decides to charge anything and not just work on a labor/companionship trade, the stipend usually only costs around $160 a month.

Home Share Now is always looking to expand their participant pool, as sometimes they might run out of homeowners to match with home-seekers. Along with taking steps to change people’s perception of home sharing with their website and through public relations, Home Share Now also has a traveling photo exhibit, which showcases the successful home sharing home-seekers and homeowners. The exhibit was shot and put together by John Lazenby, which has already traveled through Barre, Randolph, and other Vermont cities.

For more information on home sharing in the local area, you can go to http://www.homesharenow.org/ to learn more, as well as begin the application process if you are interested in becoming a home-seeker, or home provider. For more information about the photo work of John Lazenby, go to http://www.lazenbyphoto.com/ to find out more.