Recession roommates

More singles are sharing spaces as work slips away

A one-bedroom apartment is not a lot of space for Julie Beers, her 2-year-old daughter, a golden retriever and a black Lab.

But Beers, 39, is hoping to find a roommate to move into the Annapolis apartment's bedroom who will pay $500 a month, with Beers and her daughter bedding down in the living room. Her rent is $1,180, and while unemployment checks do cover it, that doesn't leave much for food and gas.

Beers worked as a sales and marketing director for a company that sells guides to yachtsmen and was laid off from that $60,000 job in February. Business dropped by 30 percent in the recession.

"I was able to afford day care and everything," she said of her old salary. "I'm applying for jobs that are so much less than I made," she said. Some pay as little as $12 an hour.

Beers has had two inquiries from prospective roommates, but she's scared -- both were men. "I'm not sure what to do. I want to make sure I don't put my daughter in a position that's unsafe," she said.

Two or more single people living together is part of the D.C.-area culture -- has been for decades. The high housing costs and low salaries in the nonprofit sector and on Capitol Hill practically make it a necessity.

But for single mothers or older homeowners under financial stress, looking for "recession roommates" is a harder line to cross.

Nancy Coleman, 52, of Bristow, was not desperate for the money a roommate can bring. After all, her older daughter had lived rent-free with her for two years after she graduated from college.

But with that daughter getting married, and her youngest away at Old Dominion University, the house was echoingly empty. In January, Coleman started thinking about getting a roommate. She tried to find one through church and her social network. She looked at Craigslist twice without taking the next step -- writing an ad.

"Oh, no, I can't do this," she recalled thinking.

But when her dog died, she decided to take the plunge, and she quickly found a woman who wanted to live with her in exchange for $500 a month.

"I got a roommate also for the money," she admitted, as her piano lessons and freelance bookkeeping work have been hurt by the recession. Where usually she had 20 to 25 piano students, now she has 16. She used to have part-time bookkeeping jobs and decided to do freelance work last year, "right when the economy went down the tubes." She said, "I just assumed I would have all the work I wanted."