Washington Demographic Society

Thursday, September 10, 2026, at 5:00 PM

Population Reference Bureau, 1111 19th Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20036

Where U.S. public supports fall short of need, individuals often turn to the private safety net – instrumental support from family and friends. Although impacts of the public safety net are well-documented, less research considers how the private safety net shapes patterns of hardship. Focusing on the case of older adults’ shared households, this study demonstrates how the provision and receipt of private safety net support shapes housing costs and, ultimately, our understanding of the contours of the housing affordability crisis. Using Survey of Income and Program Participation data, we find that 15% of older adults are hosts, who share their home with others, and 6% are guests, who live in someone else’s home. Counterfactual estimates reveal that guests pay $793 less a month on housing than they would in nonshared housing, and hosts pay $53 more. Without shared households, an additional 5% of older adults would experience cost burdens, and racial disparities would be up to 300% larger. Our findings illustrate that private safety net support is an important component of the U.S. social safety net: taking this support for granted risks obscuring the level of need – and disparities in needs – that are left by the private market.

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