In 2024, over 770,000 people across the United States experienced homelessness in a single night—more than ever recorded. The num­ber of renter households spending more than half their income on rent also reached a record high. The nation additionally faces a loneliness and isolation epidemic, and addressing social connection will be necessary to strengthen individual and collective health and well-being.

Shared housing is a pragmatic approach to combating social isolation and homelessness. In a shared housing arrangement, two or more unrelated people live together and share common space in temporary or perma­nent housing. This is a normal practice in private housing markets but not across the housing assistance world.

MDRC, in partnership with the Shared Housing Institute (SHI), is conducting an outcomes and implementation study to better understand the potential and promise of shared housing to address homelessness, housing affordability, and social connectedness and well-being in high-cost areas across the country. This brief discusses how MDRC and SHI collaborated with national shared housing leaders in 2024 to codevelop a learning agenda for the shared housing evaluation. It then lays out the framework for the research questions the study will address.