Why?

Finding Housemates:
Scrolling through pages and pages of craigslist adds really bugs me.  I'm not alone.  The search for new housemates or a new house could be greatly improved.  I think it's possible for it to be fun.  With a social network of community houses, at any given time you know potential houses and housemates, people to ask and places to look.  The "search" becomes non-existent because you are already connected.

Bill Management:
When housemates pull out a calculator, then I write out a check and we snail mail these pieces of paper to our landlord, I can't help but feel like I'm in an old fashion movie or something.  We need to bring shared housing into the 21st century.

Social good:
Harvard Sociologist Robert Putnam argues that "...the United States has undergone an unprecedented collapse in civic, social, associational, and political life... since the 1960's with serious negative consequences".*  He shows that lacking this "Social Capitol", economies are less efficient, crime is worse, and people's mental and physical health tend to be worse.

When you live in a shared house you are part of a community.  Not only do housemates get to know each other but the friends of housemates tend to form a community around the space.  The intention of GroupHouse is to support and grow these type of healthy communities.

Celebrate a lifestyle:
I remember talking to a friend of my Dad's about the hard economy.  He referred my being almost thirty and still living in shared housing as a "lower quality of life".  Thinking of my awesome housemates and warm loving home I had to chuckle a little before explaining how great my life was.  But it was tough for him to understand.

I want to create a tool that allows people to celebrate a social lifestyle.  I see no reason to look upon shared living as a lower quality of life.  Indeed, I feel that it is, by many measures, a much higher quality of life.  GroupHouse is intended to allow people to share the ideas and experience that make it so.


*From Wikipedia Article on Robert Putnam