HMOs - do they improve community resilience?

Houses of Multiple Occupation often carry negative connotations and sometimes when you read news of overcrowding in properties and landlords breaking laws, you can see why.

Co-living though is becoming a more familiar set up and as I posted this last week, here on LinkedIn, even hotels like Virgin are building on its success.

When you think about hotels, they have certain commonalties: a reception area, a bar, a restaurant, a lounge, then lifts and stairs to take you to rooms with windows and balconies, a bed and ensuite shower room.

You get variations on this theme depending on price and location, but that is usually standard fare.

The problem with living like that is hotels do lack community - don't you agree? You're highly unlikely to talk to people in the rooms next door. You may not converse over breakfast or dinner with others either.

Sir Richard Branson has seen this missing link and decided to make his Miami hotel communal. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

In more general terms, away from the travel and leisure industry, I don't think anyone could agree that communities are communities any more. They are in certain places, but shifting work and leisure patters and the birth of the internet have led to greater social separation.

The internet has revolutionised life, as has social media, but there can be little doubt that it has impacted on real life, human interaction. Online shopping has exacerbated this. High streets and town centres have seen declining footfall and the days of giant supermarkets and mammoth stores like Toys R Us are over, it seems.

So where does this leave HMOs or co-living?

I firmly believe, philosophically, from leading No White Walls, that co-living provides so many answers to society's increasing fragmentation.

Our homes in Hull, Hemel Hempstead, Slough, Portsmouth and Staines, for example, bring tenants together. They share high quality communal areas, like living rooms, kitchens and gardens, with the privacy of their own luxury bedroom, close by.

For landlords and developers, it's a model that pays back financially and morally - our tenants do stay longer, live happily together and form lifelong friendships.

This week, social media was rightly focused on mental health.

Co-living improves mental wellness.

Sharing spaces, talking, engaging in collaborative activities goes some way to assuage one of the problems of modern living - loneliness.

If you'd like to know more about our service and philosophy as a tenant, landlord or developer, or simply have a chat, contact the No White Walls team today.