When divorce occurs, emotional turmoil, and financial loss often negatively affect the family. Help in overcoming the loss of a relationship is needed at so many levels, but is often non-existent or at best insufficient. One of the most brilliant ideas I have seen for helping single mothers comes from another single mother. Carmel Sullivan-Boss experienced a divorce, and wanted to continue to provide adequate housing for her family, while avoiding the social isolation that often occurs after the demise of a relationship. Carmel created CoAbode, a program that offers a unique service to provide single moms the opportunity to share housing.
According to their website: “The idea for CoAbode came out of Sullivan’s own experience of feeling alone. After her divorce she started talking to other single moms and found they were dealing with the same loneliness issues. Many suffer atrocious living conditions. It struck Sullivan that there should be a reliable resource to help single mothers connect with each other for house sharing purposes. Women in general like to connect with each other but for single moms in particular, connecting with another woman in the same situation could make a huge improvement in their day-to-day lives. CoAbode is an attempt to provide what single moms want. We need to connect. We want to verbalize the loneliness, the fear and frustration. Through sharing our experiences we can educate each other on how to survive a broken marriage, and how to rise to the challenge of caring for our children alone. We can ‘lighten our load’ by helping each other out, by pooling our resources and providing each other with an understanding ear.”
CoAbode is a non-profit organization that helps to connect single mom headed families with other single mom families to share housing while pooling resources and finances. Women can sign up for the service and utilize the database to find other mothers in their area who have similar interests, and child rearing philosophies with children that are near their own children’s ages and/or gender. Contact is made initially via the organization’s secure e-mail system. Participants are advised to conduct in-depth interviews in person to determine compatibility, and then actually try living with each other for a weekend or longer before committing to a long-term living arrangement. In addition, women can sign up to find other mothers in their geographic area who are interested in friendship without sharing living space.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Carmel Sullivan-Boss, the founder of the organization, to find out more about this innovative program. Carmel told me that there are currently 2300 participants throughout the nation, and the program has helped hundreds of families find house sharing opportunities. When asked what to do if a person is unsure of co-habitating with non-family members, Carmel responded-“Simple- don’t do it.”
Living with another family can help to relieve financial pressure, provide better living arrangements while offering opportunities to share childcare, house cleaning and a myriad of other responsibilities that both parties mutually agree upon.
If the idea of sharing resources and living space appeals to you, go to www.coabode.org, register, and fill out a profile. The profile is in depth and will take some time to complete. You can search for other single mom’s in your area at no cost. If you decide that you want to contact a potential room-mate there is a charge of $29.95 because the organization is a non-profit organization and currently depends on these fees to meet their expenses. The organization currently serves women and their families, but hopes to expand their services in the future to include single dad families.