Easing the Burden: How Couch-Surfing Youth and Informal Adult Hosts Navigate Relational Challenges

Overview: This study investigated supportive couch-surfing arrangements; specifically, the sometimes-challenging relational dynamics between youth facing homelessness and adult, “chosen-family” hosts. Key findings included youth’s worries about burdening hosts and housing security, tensions around household expectations and boundaries, and youth and host resolution strategies. Social work education and practice implications are identified.Proposal text: Approximately 5% of youth transitioning to adulthood (18- to 25-years-old) in the United States engage in “couch-surfing” annually (Morton et al., 2018). Since 2009, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has included couch-surfing—moving from place to place without a stable living arrangement—in the federal definition of youth homelessness (Curry et al., 2017; McLoughlin, 2013). Some youth endure exploitation and violence while couch-surfing (Curry et al., 2017; McLoughlin, 2013). However, positive couch-surfing arrangements resulting in supportive, family-like relationships between youth and informal hosts also exist (Curry et al., 2021). The current study investigates the sometimes-challenging relational dynamics that arise in what can be termed “chosen-family hosting” and how youth and hosts respond. Nonetheless, in the study, both youth and informal hosts identify hosts as an anticipated source of ongoing support for youth.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 people, including nine youth (ages 17-23) experiencing housing instability and ten informal adult hosts (ages 34-62). Participants were recruited through drop-in centers, food banks, and other locations. The hosting arrangement must have been at minimum three weeks long, and youth and hosts were required to be at least ten years apart in age and not in a sexual or romantic relationship. Participants identified as white, Black, Native American, and multiracial and from urban and suburban areas and a Native nation in one Midwestern state. The research team employed iterative coding processes, first using open then focused coding, and ultimately thematic analyses (Braun & Clarke, 2012; Clarke & Braun, 2017) to answer three research questions: 1) What are the relational risks and challenges of informal hosting arrangements? 2) What strategies and strengths do hosts and youth rely on to manage relational challenges in these arrangements? And 3) from the perspectives of youth and hosts, how might these relationships and living arrangements be further stabilized or supported?

We identified five themes. In the context of most youth and hosts describing their important and anticipated ongoing familial connections with one another, (1) youth often worried about burdening hosts and (2) felt extremely vulnerable about the security of their hosting arrangement—concerns about which many hosts were also keenly aware. Further, youth and hosts shared how (3) youth’s pursuit of the Western ideal of independence precluded imagining a longer-term stay with their host. Given shared living, youth and hosts (4) experienced challenges and tensions around household expectations and boundaries, like cleaning, guests, and substance use. Importantly, participants also shared (5) how they tried to resolve challenges by developing clear household agreements, using varied communication strategies, enlisting support from other people, and modeling positive behaviors.

These findings hold important implications for social work education and practice. Social work classrooms and field placements are prime locations for helping students identify youth living with chosen family or informal hosts, and with the youth and their hosts, assess potential relationship-strengthening services to stabilize and lengthen such naturally occurring housing and promote interdependence during the transition to adulthood and beyond, thus facilitating youth’s biopsychosocial development (Pergamit et al., 2016).