Stepping into a house somewhere in Luxembourg City, an assembly of shoes in all different sizes greets visitors. A dog sniffs around. The usual clutter of children is strewn around the living room--a few toys, kids water bottles, crayons and half-finished art projects. On the windowsill, seedlings are growing in an old egg carton.
Two single mothers live in the house with their four children and another housemate, also a woman--an unusual living arrangement for Luxembourg but part of a trend of changing living situations.
“I wanted to just be with women,” said Vania Laranjeira Amaral who initiated the idea to start a house share. “This was essential. It had to be like this.”
Vania for several years had been planning a co-living project, always with her friend and fellow single mother in mind. “I said over and over that I wanted to do this and that we would find a way. It took a while.”
For the mothers in particular, it means a support network in the home, a helping hand. “I’m happy to have people around me, to be able to speak with someone anytime. Before, alone, when something happened or I wasn’t feeling well or everything was too much, there was no one there immediately. Here, there’s this presence.”
While the two single mothers naturally stick together, living together as three women is an added bonus. “Relationships between women are different than with men. For me, it’s easier to be myself and to act and speak freely. I don’t want to say that men aren’t empathetic, but I really feel that women can create this space emotionally. You feel like you’re being held.”
Relationships between women are different than with men. For me, it’s easier to be myself and to act and speak freely.
The mothers also didn’t want to live with couples. “It changes the dynamics.” The third woman living in the house is a refugee from Eritrea. “That was our first question. We know what it’s like with children--getting up early, the noise, there’s chaos. They’re children. It was one of our biggest concerns.”
However, the group has been living together since December and things are going well. “You have to get to know each other.” So far, they manage without cleaning schedules and shared shopping lists, but communication is everything and Vania said the women check in with each other regularly.
Her son, Vania said, “is really happy.” As an only child he is enjoying the company of the other three kids. “They run around here; they play with each other. Of course, they also argue.”
The families share their morning routine, have dinner together. “Meals are really the moment when we sit together.” When the children are with their fathers, the women also spend more time on their own.
The house the group lives in stood idle for several years after the elderly woman living there could no longer stay on her own. Her son finally rented it out. “We are really lucky with the owner,” said Vania. “He was happy. He grew up here for some time. He wanted there to be life.”
Social rent programme
The house share was facilitated by “de WG Projet”, a social housing initiative under the Life not-for-profit, which also runs other socially and environmentally conscious projects.
Life, in turn, is a partner of the government’s “gestion locative sociale”--or social rent management--programme.
The scheme aims to make property lying vacant available as affordable housing by offering a tax break to owners and essentially taking the flat or house off their hands via a partner agency.
There are 39 partners to manage the letting of the homes, the housing ministry said at a press conference on 27 March. This includes charities such as the Femmes en détresse women’s shelter and the Stëmm vun der Strooss homeless organisation but also several communes and social services offices.
A total of 1,177 homes are let via the scheme, which the government spent €1.6m on last year. The number of homes included in the programme has grown from 714 in 2018, with the budget rising from €811,022 that year.
While owners agree to rent out their vacant property below market value, they receive rent even if the place stands idle between tenants. As in the private market, the owner can claim the property for own use. And under new rules agreed in March, three quarters of rent income are tax exempt, up from 50% previously.
The agencies helping the government run the scheme also receive financial compensation.
“Solidarity, responsibility, autonomy”
“When you have a flat share, someone needs to take responsibility, manage the finances. Someone needs to pay for the internet subscription. Here, the asbl [not-for-profit, editor’s note] does this,” said Gary Diderich, who works with Life and co-manages the WG Projet.
Around 230 people live in housing provided by the organisation, but 500 more are on a waiting list. “The situation is dramatic,” he said. While the project initially was meant to enable co-living plans, such as Vania’s, it has increasingly become a tool to help people in need.
“We receive emergency calls every day,” said Diderich, for example from people being kicked out of refugee shelters or evicted from their homes with nowhere else to stay. “It’s not what we had in mind when we started the project.”
The association has signed agreements with the education and family ministries, receiving support from social workers and also to manage the administration of the house shares.
It prioritises groups who already come with a flat share project in mind, and anyone can apply for a room, regardless of background, income or work situation.
We are offering ourselves as a partner to communes.
“A lot has changed,” said Diderich about the readiness of property owners to accept a flat share and work with the social housing programme. “It’s a process that doesn’t happen from one day to the next.”
The not-for-profit has been adding around ten properties to its portfolio every year and has in the meantime also begun buying homes with the support of government subsidies. Different agencies in the “gestion locative sociale” network also work together to pass each other objects or clients, depending on who is looking for what. A home that is too big for a single family, for example, could be more suitable for a house share project.
One of the biggest hurdles currently are commune regulations. Esch-sur-Alzette in 2021 adopted and then scrapped controversial rules that made it nearly impossible for people who are not related to each other or in a relationship to live together.
“They don’t make a difference between the WG Projet and a mattress dealer,” Diderich said, acknowledging that there are players in the market who look to divide properties up into as many beds as possible and squeeze the tenants for rent. “We are offering ourselves as a partner to communes” to combat this problem, he said.
The initiative’s motto is “solidarity, responsibility, autonomy” and it wants to keep creating shared spaces not as communities of convenience but for people to co-live.
Creating harmony
“I wouldn’t be able to rent this kind of house if it wasn’t for Life,” said Isabel Beirer who lives in a houseshare with three women in Ettelbrück. She shared an apartment before but the owners sold and she had to vacate the premises. “I knew I didn’t want an expensive flat. I wouldn’t have paid €1,200. I couldn’t accept that. I thought that there must be a different way.”
The women each have their bedroom and share the bathroom and living spaces. On Saturday mornings they clean together--an unwritten rule. “We don’t even have to say anything. There are no arguments.”
Instead of squabbles with roommates who are thrown together coincidentally Isabel described the project as “intentional”, with the four women actively choosing to live together. “We have a wonderful, harmonic flatshare. We take care of each other,” she said. “We talk every day. We’re just nice to each other. And that’s different. This respect.”
For Isabel, the project is also about personal growth: “It can be so simple, but it’s about your attitude and your willingness for things to work, creating harmony inside yourself.”
Isabel first got her friend Sarah on board and found their other two housemates through the WG Projet. It was always clear that there would be no men in the house. “It would change everything.” Although partners are allowed to come visit, they cannot move in.
“Whether you want to or not--when there is this male energy, you change your attitude, you’re not as open,” said Isabel. “There are things you can do in a women’s flatshare--getting out of the shower and hopping across the hall naked, without being sexualised. The freedom to feel safe is a quality of life.”