“The Benefits Far Outweigh the Challenges”: Examining Practices of Queer Shared Households in Canada

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the experiences and practices of LGBTQ+ adults in Canada living in shared housing arrangements. Drawing on qualitative focus group data from eight participants aged 32–67 in three Canadian cities, we identify and discuss three key themes that characterize these arrangements: (a) the material drivers and impacts of shared housing; (b) shared housing as an expression of queer identities, intimacies, and life ways; and (c) the interpersonal challenges and practices of queer shared housing. We forward the concept of “queer shared households” as a framework to recognize and theorize practices of household formation developed outside of cisheteronormative structures and emergent within socioeconomic, policy, and legal contexts as well as within everyday practices of intimacy, care, and labor exchange. We further offer financial, design, and policy recommendations to support and enable the formation of queer households.