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Living with your parents.
Living in a resident-managed housing co-operative.
Living with international boarders in a two-storey Queenslander.
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.
Ellamay, Gold Coast
Ellamay Khongroj Fitzgerald didn't imagine herself still living with her parents at 31.
"You know, you've grown up with your parents, you sometimes have your differences and you want to get away which I did," she says.
But after living abroad, she moved back into the downstairs area of her parents' Palm Beach home — along with roommate Courtenay Mccue in April 2023.
The pair have their own bathroom, kitchen and living space but share a backyard and laundry with Ellamay's parents.
It's a living arrangement Ellamay has coined her share house "within a family home".
In the coveted suburb where the median rental price for a two-bedroom home is $737 a week, Ellamay says the arrangement helps her pay off her parent's mortgage instead of paying a landlord.
As an artist, Courtenay says the household offers her a chance to move out from home with a safety net.
"There's definitely been weeks where I've literally been waiting for galleries and people to pay me, but obviously (they have been) late," she says.
"So then I've been late with rent payments and stuff, which Ella's parents have been so supportive of.
"Otherwise, I don't know how we'd be able to do it."
Ellamay’s stepfather Paul Fitzgerald hopes having a multigenerational household will mean he and his wife can be cared for at home as they age.
"It would make more sense to keep a big family home and support either your parents or your children living there," he says.
“We hear (Courtenay and Ellamay's) laughter and it's like having the girls home again."
"I think it keeps us healthier as well, just having that connection to family," Sue adds.
"I’ll look back when I’m older and be like, I’m really glad that I was so close," Ellamay says.
Melanie and Maxine, South Hobart
In the foreground of Hobart's kunanyi/Mt Wellington reserve, Melanie Thompson and her youngest daughter Maxine jump between trampolines.
The pair live in one of the dozen households in the South Hobart Cohousing Co-operative, a Danish style co-housing project created in the early 2000s.
Melanie credits the co-op with giving her the chance to study— a dream she had been waiting 35 years to achieve.
She says the supportive space, coupled with capped rent that was only one third of her income, gave her freedom to start.
Neighbours also helped to look after Maxine when Melanie had late shifts on placements and taught her how to edit essays.
"The co-op said, 'Look, you're studying, you need to have housing security'. Then they gave me a two-year lease," she says.
"The co-op has given me that opportunity to better myself, to be able to actually do more."
All 12 homes and a common room in the South Hobart co-op face a central car-free pedestrian 'street'.
Homes range from two to four bedrooms with a private garden or balcony.
The co-op can share communal meals and celebrations in the common room, which also contains a guest flat.
Communal gardens and courtyards run throughout.
The result is a three-block village where children play "under kitchen sink supervision" and neighbours regularly run into one another.
It's a big reason why Linda Seaborn encourages young families, especially single mums, into the co-op.
Linda joined the low-cost resident-managed housing project 24 years ago.
"I just believe this is a profoundly good environment for somebody to have their formative years in," she says.
"The cars are parked on the outside, so they've got this whole kind of safe environment to get around in and they get adults modelling peaceful conflict resolution and democratic decision making."
Melanie says Maxine loves bringing her friends to the community, almost as much as Melanie loves a community which can co-parent Maxine.
"We've got six trampolines out there and a fire and I can let her go out and do that," she says.
"The other thing is that if I've got something to do, I feel comfortable leaving her in the house.
"She can call Linda, she can scream out, she can go over to Nat's, whatever."
Together, the pair potter in a greenhouse.
Melanie recalls how her neighbour Melinda would regularly check in on her during a rough patch.
"We're watching a musical and sitting there eating cake," she says.
"And it's like, life isn't how you expect it to be, but there is so many good things in it."
Clare, Brisbane
In the south Brisbane suburb of Fairfield, a classic Queenslander holds a melting pot of inhabitants.
On the lower floor, Clare Quinn and husband Dylan live with their two children, Joe, three, and Jack, nine months.
Above them, international students Derek Forrester and Lauren and Turner Simmers board together.
All three students, who hail from the US, say they struggled to find accommodation upon moving to Brisbane.
"I thought it was going to be easy," Derek says.
"You know, you go in the city, surely there's apartments available.
"Surely, if you're willing to spend some extra money, you could find a place.
"But it really wasn't the case."
Luckily, the trio found Clare who said it only felt right to open her home.
What she didn't bet on was the arrangement shifting her perception of family.
"Having had children in the past few years, I've really realised the way we organise ourselves, certainly in Australia and a lot of like Western places, is in nuclear families," she says.
"If you're lucky, that's a mum, a dad and kids.
“You can't raise kids like that and I just want to take my hat off to anyone who manages to do that.
"We just don't have the skills, time, experience to do all that."
Together, the household has instead forged ahead with a new type of household— from sharing backyard chores to child rearing.
"It's been amazing for Joe," Clare says.
"Some days he comes in from daycare, he doesn't want to see me, he wants to see Lauren.
"And like, seeing that independence and him sort of growing a little social self is really good."
Lauren says she and Turner would have moved back to the US already if it wasn't for Clare's family.
"I couldn't make it without them," she says.
"Just being homesick a lot and (I can go) I need some Jack cuddles.
"(It) helps a lot."
Credits
Words: (Nur) Aishah Kenton and Tessa Flemming
Photographer: (Nur) Aishah Kenton /Oculi
Production: Tessa Flemming
The Great Crumbling 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.