Michele Smith and Jenny Young, the best of friends, were in their mid-50’s when fear of illness and incapacity set them to joking, bleakly, about side-by-side rocking chairs at an old folks’ home.  Instead, they decided to pool their resources, build a home in a gentle climate, divide the chores, buy insurance for long-term home health care and meanwhile enjoy the pleasures of female friendship.

You don’t need to be young to benefit from having a roommate. Homesharing is for older people, too. Everyone in the homesharing arrangement is free to use the common areas of the house, like the kitchen and living room. Yet everyone has personal space, usually a bedroom, where they can have privacy.

Whether widowed, divorced, or single, more and more women are finding a surprisingly practical living arrangement.