Housing the People Who Care for Us

The people who staff hospitals, nursing facilities, and home care agencies keep hard hours: night shifts, early starts, weekends, and holidays. For some of them, rent near work takes a large share of a paycheck.

Some older homeowners live close to a hospital or clinic and have a room they are not using. If this kind of work is meaningful to you, sharing your home with a health worker can be one way to put that room to use. It has to work for both of you: a room at a rent the home seeker can manage, and, for you, some help with costs and another person in the house, on terms you both set.

This is about housing, not care. The person who moves in is not your nurse, your aide, or your plan for later. And a health worker may prefer that their housing have nothing to do with their job, which is a fine answer too.

Why this matters

Direct care workers, the home health aides, personal care aides, and nursing assistants who support older adults and people with disabilities, had median annual earnings of just under $26,000¹. A shared home is one way some might live closer to work at a cost they can manage.

What it can look like

HIP Housing's home sharing program in San Mateo County, California, matches working people, students, and others with home providers. If you want a match with a health worker, ask your local program whether it partners with a hospital, nursing school, or home care agency.

An example of how it might look (a composite, not real people): A retired postal carrier shares his home with a night-shift nurse, matched through a program that works with her hospital. Their agreement spells out quiet hours during her sleep, who shovels the walk, and, in plain words, that she does not provide any health care or health advice in the home. When his doctor ordered wound care after surgery, his daughter arranged a home health agency. Her part was what anyone in the house might do: she kept the hallway quiet and asked how he was doing.

What to know first

Go through a specialized partner. This kind of match is materially more complex than matching two adults. The worker's employer may have policies about living with current or former patients or clients. The line between housing and care can blur when one person is trained in care and the other may someday need it. A home sharing program working with a hospital, nursing school, or home care agency can provide professional support: careful matching, a written agreement that says what is not included, and check-ins after move-in.

This is about housing, not care. Home sharing is housing. It is not caregiving, case management, counseling, or treatment. Trading help around the house for lower rent, or paying someone for help, can create employment, tax, and insurance obligations whether or not anyone intended it. The person you share a home with will not provide medical help, personal care, medication reminders, wound care, health checks, or health advice as part of the arrangement, even if they are trained to, and even if you ask. In an emergency, anyone in the house would call 911, which is not the same as being responsible for your health.

Any household help stays ordinary, if it exists at all. If the program offers service exchange, in which a home seeker does agreed chores in place of part of the rent, keep it to ordinary tasks such as taking out the recycling. Care in exchange for housing is a different arrangement, and the rules depend on the situation and your state. Ask: Would this count as employment? Who would be the employer? Ask legal aid or your program, and read the U.S. Department of Labor's shared living guidance.

Plan your own care separately. Decide now who you would call if you needed care: family, your Area Agency on Aging, or a home care agency. That keeps your match a match.

Respect their off hours. Talk about night shifts, sleep, noise, and parking before move-in, and write it down.

Ask before you describe the person you want. Your listing can describe the home, such as "quiet house, 10 minutes from the medical center." Hoping for a particular kind of home seeker can raise fair housing questions, and a preference is not necessarily lawful just because it is shared privately rather than in a listing. Read our post "Choosing who lives with you, fairly" and talk with your program or a local fair housing organization.

Ask about benefits. Rent may affect some benefits, depending on the program. Ask your benefits office: Does rent count as income for my benefits? Do I need to report a new person in the household?

How to get started

1. Find a home sharing program through the Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116, and ask whether it works with hospitals, nursing schools, or home care agencies.
2. If you work for a health employer or nursing school, contact a local program about a partnership.
3. Ask the program: How do you put in writing that care is not included? Does the employer have policies we should know about? Who do we call if the boundary starts to slip?

Conversation starters

If you are an adult child or friend raising home sharing with an older adult:

• "You always say the nurses made the difference when Dad was sick. Would you want to offer the room to someone who does that work, through a program?"
• "Can we write down together what the person living here will not do, so nobody is confused later?"
• "If you look into it and decide you would rather not, that is a fine answer."

If you are an older adult talking with family or caregivers:

• "I would like to offer my room to someone who works in health care, through a program that works with their employer."
• "This is about housing, not care. If I need care, we will arrange it separately."
• "Will you help me think through quiet hours and parking before I meet anyone?"

This is about housing, not care. A room near the hospital is the offer. Your care is arranged separately.

Home sharing and older adults

Home sharing works at any age. Older adults are one of the fastest-growing groups sharing a home with someone who is not family². HomeShare America's analysis of Census data estimates that older adults own 35 million spare bedrooms³.

Last reviewed September 25, 2026