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When single mum-of-two Michelle separated from her partner, she knew she wanted to keep her own home on Sydney's northern beaches.
With a newborn baby and a five-year-old, she also knew she didn't want to have to work crazy hours away from her children to be able to afford to do so.
"I didn't want to be leaving for work at 6.30-7 o'clock in the morning and coming home at 6.30 or 7 o'clock at night," she said.
"That would mean long days for the kids at school and daycare – and I just didn't want to do it."
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Faced with that choice, Michelle made a decision that's now becoming more and more common as single parents explore creative ways to afford the cost of living.
Michelle opened her home to boarders – specifically other single parents with children who needed an affordable place to stay.
The rent she received helped pay the mortgage and relieve some of the financial stress she was under.
"What it allowed me to do was to work two long days a week, and work from home on a Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, working shorter hours and not stressing my kids out," she said.
That was 11 years ago. Since then, Michelle and her family have shared their four-bedroom home with many single parents and their children over the years.
Sharing her home with other single parents had several advantages, Michelle said, including the opportunity to pool resources.
"If you find the right tenant you can share meals, or even share childcare if you want to go out occasionally, but don't want to pay a babysitter.
Michelle said she had previously shared the cost of hiring a university student to look after her kids with another single mother she was living with.
"The university student would come in the mornings and organise all our kids and we could go off to work on those two days," Michelle said.
For other single parents, the advantages came from being able to move into a home that was already set up and furnished, she said.
"I know some people who have shared with me have left family violence or something like that. They don't have furniture and that's what they need," she said.
"Also, I think some people – mainly single dads I find – use it as a bit of a stepping stone.
"They need a place which is child-friendly, so they can still see their kids or have their kids in their care. But they only stay for three to six months until they financially sort themselves out, and then they go and get their own place."
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However, there could be pitfalls to sharing with another single-parent family, including differing parenting styles, Michelle said.
It was always a good idea to sit down with the other parent and ask some key questions before they moved in, she said.
"I will say, 'Come and see the place if you're interested, let's sit down and talk about how we parent.'
"I don't like violence in my household, I don't hit my children, and I don't want to see anyone else smacking their children.
Michelle said she also always made sure to see a working with children check and police check beforehand.
"When people don't have one, I'll sit down with them and I'll do the application with them. And that way I get to see their driver's licence, that kind of thing."
An answer to loneliness?
According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were over 1.5 million Australians living in single parent families during the 2021 Census.
Of those families, there were just over half-a-million single parent families with a dependent child under 15 years of age.
Relationships Australia NSW CEO Elisabeth Shaw said housing shortages, as well as finances, were driving separated couples to explore different living arrangements.
In some cases, that could mean separated couples trying to live together under the same roof, Shaw, who is a clinical and counselling psychologist, said.
However, this was not always possible or desirable, leading to single parents exploring other options, such as housesharing, she said.
Housesharing could sometimes provide much-needed companionship and support for single parents, Shaw said.
"We tend to think loneliness is about being elderly," Shaw said.
"But single parents, and in fact, slightly more with single dads, can be very lonely.
"So I think the great thing about looking at alternative communities is that the single parents can still have, in a sense, that other parent there to bolster them and share the load.
"It's also really good for sharing financial costs and it creates a stability within the home."
Some single parents 'at crisis point'
Daisy Ashworth runs an online platform called Share Abode, which helps single parents pair up in the search for suitable living arrangements.
Ashworth said it was apparent many single parents were struggling to afford the surging cost of housing, and around 8000 users were registered with Share Abode.
"One of the things that has come across most recently is the number of people reaching out that are at crisis point," Ashworth said.
"It could be that they're being evicted, they've been given notice, or they cannot physically afford to enter the housing market in a rental by themselves," she said.
"That pointy end has increased significantly in the last six to 12 months."
Despite the desperation some single parents had found themselves in, co-living could be a positive choice with many benefits, Ashworth said.
"We don't think it needs to be a last resort option.
"It can actually be a good choice for everyone, but lone parents specifically because of the additional benefits that come with sharing your home with somebody going through something similar to yourself.
"Some of those positive elements include having that social connection, having two people to care for your children instead of one.
"If you're exiting family and domestic violence, one of the reasons that women return to the perpetrator is the financial and emotional elements of being separated from the partner – living with somebody else can minimise that impact."
Contact reporter Emily McPherson at emcpherson@nine.com.au
