For many, the Australian share house symbolises more than four walls and a roof.
It is a rite of passage.
A first step in the journey of adulthood.
But as the housing crisis evolves, so too does the share house.
Come with us as we look at the young Australians hoping to make the communal space a forever home.
During the past year, photographer Aishah Kenton set out to discover what share housing looks like today.
What she unearthed was a reinvention of the share house.
Not only a home for now, but potentially forever.
In 2021, home ownership fell by 14 per cent for Australians aged between 25 and 29 when compared to that same age group in 1971.
2023 marked Flatmates.com.au's busiest year on recordas more people turned to share housing.
And as Kenton saw, the share house is increasingly being embraced as an alternative to traditional home ownership and nuclear households.
Here's what she learnt from three Brisbane share houses.
Bella, Jack, Sahara and Rhett
In inner city Brisbane, an old Queenslander with a large backyard is a sanctum for Bella Porras, Jack Greer, Sahara Bailey, RhettKleine, and therapy cat Harper.
All members of the home are neurodivergent.
Emphasis is put on making each member feel safe.
Sahara hangs a mood board on her door so her roommates can respond to how she’s feeling, while all tenants let the others know before company comes over.
Bella says despite being initially worried about moving in, the experience had helped their obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
"I've had to be like, ‘OK, people will clean up after themselves'," they say.
"It’s not putting so much pressure on myself to be so tidy all the time."
The home has opened up a world other than a traditional family home for Sahara.
"Why does it have to be this way?" she asks.
“Why can’t you celebrate life every weekend and have a picnic with all of your housemates?
"Why can’t you have dinner and make your own makeshift family outside of your family?”
Bella struggles to see themselves owning a home.
"I think if we wanted to use our savings for something, it would be to travel and then come back to where we want," they say.
“Rather than spending all our money on a house that we will end up having to stay in and pay off for the rest of our lives.”
Brooke, Teresa, and April
ForBrooke Manning, Teresa Dowling and April Kuipers, share housing is just as much about community as it is convenience.
"I think it's my favourite thing ever," Teresa says.
"Like being able, any day of the week, (to) see my friends all the time."
Life is punctuated in small acts of kindness, like packing each other's lunches or sharing dinner.
"My favourite thing is when before bed, we'll boil the kettle and sit around and have a cup of tea and biscuits," Brooke says.
"We do it pretty much every night."
"It feels like family," April chimes in.
Lia, Nicholas, Maeve, Anna, Lucia, and William
Family is a notion the home ofLia Ribeiro de Noronha, Nicholas Allison, Anna Jourdant, Maeve, William Bird and Lucía Vasquez is rewriting.
With a mix of neurodivergent and queer roommates, the household says it feels more like a chosen family.
"The concept of the nuclear family is so attached to a house," Lia says.
"I think that it's really interesting how that is evolving and developing because of the housing crisis."
Nick, who is non-binary, says the experience has allowed them to explore the dynamics of being queer outside of the family structure.
"I think that the share house experience, or just finding community, is so valuable to allowing yourself to be comfortable with who you are," they say.
"I think it just helps you feel like you're allowed to be in the world more."
"It's showed me that things that existence out of heteronormative norms is possible," Lia adds.
For Maeve's immigrant family, home ownership ensured security.
But this household is her chance to try something different.
"I can belong in this country without owning a house," she says.
"I'm not a failure for not owning a house.
"I will simply just exist and live and that will be okay."
The reality of temporary spaces
Kenton began her project in August 2023, flying back and forth from Brisbane to Melbourne to capture the households.
By the time it was completed,Bella, Jack, Sahara and Rhett's landlord had reclaimed the property and their lease was cut short.
Brooke, Terese, and April had also disbanded and left the share home.
Throughout the series, Kenton sent back the photos she took and asked the households to describe their thoughts.
If the photos depict a burgeoning community, their postscripts depict an equallyburgeoning vulnerability.
Sacred.
Exposed.
Temporary.
These are the just some of the words Kenton collected back.
While some of the tenants draw on the distress of a worsening rental crisis, other chose to focus on the shared movie nights and drinks on Friday in spite of looming instability.
Throughout their collages, these self proclaimed "bootleg" households prove they have indeed re-invisaged family.
"These are my people," Lia writes on a household portrait next to scribbled flowers.
In their musings, they aspire for a future where home ownership is no longer the end goal.
"The share house is a seedling in a field set to be sown," Rhett writes.
"We young ones are rebuilding this world, by backyard fires, and share house dinner tables."
They dream big, imagining their forever homes.
Surrounded by a chosen family that supports one another.
With interconnected spaces to map a lifetime in.
Even if this one is just...
home for a time.
Credits
Words: (Nur) Aishah Kenton and Tessa Flemming
Photographer: (Nur)Aishah Kenton/ Oculi
Production: Tessa Flemming
The GreatCrumbling Australian Dream
This photo essay is part of a larger photojournalism project examining Australia's housing crisis.
The Great Crumbling Australian Dream is a collaboration between Oculi photographers and ABC News, with support from National Shelter.
The series was made possible with a Meta Australian News Fund grant and the Walkley Foundation.
Oculi is a collective of Australian photographers that offers a visual narrative of contemporary life in Australia and beyond.
Delve further into the series
Pets in the park
Pets ownership can offer a wealth of positives for many people, but for those experiencing homelessness, the costs can be insurmountable.
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A new way forward
Photographer Aishah Kenton looks at three households embracing communal living to see if Australians can adapt their way of life as housing becomes ever more unaffordable.
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The Goode fight
Louise Goode's fight for the place of "emotional comfort" she called home lasted a quarter of a century, until it was demolished in front of her as she screamed for help.
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Coming home to Country
Photojournalist Rachel Mounsey follows Warumungu traditional owners in Jurnkkurakurr (Tennant Creek) as they tell stories of generational housing displacement — and their ambitious plan to reclaim their home.
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Jo Waite slept here
Comic artist Jo Waite has spent her adult life renting and squatting in Melbourne's inner suburbs, watching gentrification unfold in real time. Now, she is drawing her old homes one by one — but the beauty of the grand homes hides the reality of life inside them for tenants in decades past.
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The Kelly gang's last stand
Photojournalist Sean Davey captures the crusade to save Port Melbourne's Barak Beacon Estate, and how a community united to highlight the plight of all public housing tenants.
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