The business helping single parents overcome rental challenges

In 2017, Wilhelmina Ford was a single mum of two children with nowhere to live.

“When I became a single mum, my daughter was three months old, my son was two years old and I had an elderly dog,” she says.

After a brief look for rental homes for her young family, Ford came to the quick realisation that her best chance to find a home that would house her dog was a holiday rental.

“It was expensive and I didn’t have an income because a month prior, I had sold the business that I founded and grew over the last 10 years and the money hadn’t come through yet,” she says.

“I [had] no savings, no income and had no furniture, either. I rented the holiday home for about two months and then decided it was time to start looking for a rental.”

For Ford, it was another layer to an already incredibly complex time. The nature of her work had changed, her income was different and she didn’t have the support of a partner to help her look for, find and fund a new home.

“As a solo mum going from open house to open house with a crying baby and toddler … it was stressful. I had no one to help and couldn’t stay where I was. It was [between] a rock and a hard place,” she says.

“The second challenge was that I couldn’t show serviceability because of no income. It didn’t seem to matter if I could pay upfront or a bond because they went off my work experience, my bank account and serviceability.

“I had none of that as money was tied up in the sale of the property and business. I looked broke, without references and without experience of serviceability.”

If it wasn’t for her relationship with her mother, who agreed to both back her and live with her, Ford has no idea how she would have found a place to live for her two children.

“I ended up having to speak to my mum about this and we decided to go halves in rent and she would rent the property and I would move in with her,” she says.

“My attention then focused on the loneliness side of single parenting. With just two young kids at home all the time, no one else to talk to, and the same games over and over – I felt isolated and alone.”

It was as she found herself in a puddle of financial burden and loneliness that Ford knew there had to be a better way.

“I joined some groups on Facebook and found hundreds of other single mums who felt the same way. So I thought, I wonder how I could change this?”

And so, ShareAbode was born: A platform for single mums and dads to connect, so they are able to go through the rental challenges together.

According to Ford, the idea is that single parents struggling to find a home for the new make-up of their family can live together. It allows them to share resources, share emotional and financial burdens and find a support network along the way.

“The system is completely free and is as simple as signing up and creating a profile,” she says.

“A profile can be created in two ways: The first is as a home sharer, which might be a single parent who has a home with a mortgage or high rent and wants help with this so lists this dwelling. The second is as a home seeker, who might be a single parent looking for another parent who has a home on offer, wants to gain a friendship or look for the perfect rental together to share in those costs.”

Since the platform was created last year, Ford estimates she has helped 2000 families with their living situations.

“There is nothing more heartwarming than seeing the inquiries go through my inbox and to be kept in the loop of when they meet up, how it went and hear them then say, ‘The platform is a success, thank you for helping me, you have no idea how much this is going to make my life easier’.

“It is glorious to know I have been able to help in such a significant way two people with children financially, emotionally and logistically.”