"Golden Girls" Laws: A push to let unrelated roommates share a home

With a wink to the 1980s sitcom featuring four unrelated women sharing a Miami house, a handful of states have passed "Golden Girls" laws. These state laws, in general, remove local zoning rules that cap how many unrelated adults can legally live under one roof.

Supporters say the laws unlock affordable housing without new construction. Critics say they hand away local zoning authority and could change neighborhood character. Only a few states have actually passed Golden Girls laws to date. Legislation is pending in Pennsylvania, and Connecticut just recently failed to bring its legislation, which passed the state Senate, to a vote in the House.

Why It Matters

Housing costs have outpaced incomes for years, and two groups are feeling it acutely: older adults, including mostly women, living alone in houses that are now too big and too expensive to maintain, and younger renters priced out of one-bedroom apartments.

Today, nearly 20 million women age 65 or older are heads of households, and women account for two-thirds of householders in their 90s, according to an analysis by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies of the 2024 American Community Survey. Because women in the US live longer on average than men, they are increasingly likely to become household heads in later life.

Older women are more likely to live alone and on a fixed income, and shared housing offers both a second income stream and a hedge against isolation.

Golden Girls laws can be a low-cost, no-new-construction attempt to match these two groups, people with extra space and people who need it, by removing the legal barriers that have historically stood in the way.

Background

The mechanics of these laws are narrower than they sound. In most of the country, there's no statewide rule on the books either allowing or banning unrelated roommates — about 32 states are simply silent on the issue.

Many municipalities, though, cap the number of unrelated people who can share a house at somewhere between three and five, a holdover from older zoning codes built around the idea of the nuclear family.

A small number of states have stepped in to override those local caps. Iowa was the first in 2017. Both Iowa and Colorado have now passed legislation loosening or removing limits on unrelated adults living together.

Oregon, Hawaii, and Washington have taken a related but slightly different approach, passing laws that require local governments to permit shared housing, co-living arrangements, or micro-units.

Two more states have bills in progress. Pennsylvania's version passed the House in June and awaits a Senate vote; it would cap nonfamily occupants at five.

Connecticut's bill, which would set a lower cap of three, passed the Senate in April but died without a vote in the House after the House Speaker objected. Bill sponsors say they plan to bring it back next session.

Notably, Florida — the actual setting of the "Golden Girls" TV show — has no statewide law like these at all. It leans instead on federal and state frameworks for age-restricted senior communities, plus a patchwork of local, informal home-sharing nonprofits, like the SWFL Senior HomeShare program, which operate without any zoning override.

How These Laws Help
Supporters of the legislation point to several concrete benefits. Splitting rent, mortgages, and utility bills makes housing dramatically more affordable for single older women, single parents, and young workers alike. It enables current homeowners opening up their homes to save for later years in retirement and pay for growing living expenses and healthcare services.

Loosening occupancy caps also means older female homeowners with empty-nest bedrooms can take in housemates for extra income instead of selling their homes, letting them age in place.

Nonprofit home-share programs can help homeowners vet both parties, run background checks, and help mediate lifestyle details — from pets to parking to who controls the thermostat.

Advocates also emphasize the social benefit: built-in companionship that can reduce the health risks of isolation, plus housemates who help share chores and keep an eye on each other's health.

The laws also offer legal protection to tenants, when they sign official leases, and helps younger renters start establishing credit.

Main Objections
Opposition tends to focus on three themes. First is a loss of local control, and the fact that different cities and towns have different housing goals. Critics argue that state-level mandates strip cities and towns of their traditional authority to set zoning rules.

Second is a concern about neighborhood character and density. Some real estate and industry groups worry that easier room rentals could effectively convert single-family zones into de facto multi-family properties, straining parking, shared utilities, and water or waste demands, and potentially lowering property values through higher tenant turnover.

Third are enforcement and safety questions: opponents note that owner-occupancy rules and room-rental caps are hard for local officials to monitor and enforce, and that some proposals lack explicit standards for structural safety, building code compliance, and shared-bathroom access.

Learn More: Where to Turn for Guidance

For elderly women thinking about shared housing, a few established organizations offer free, vetted information and, in many areas, direct matching services:

● National Shared Housing Resource Center: A nonprofit network of independent home-sharing programs across the country, founded in 1980 by Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn. Its program directory lists local homeshare programs by state, and it offers best practices to vet housemates.

● Eldercare Locator: A federal government service run by the Administration for Community Living. Call 1-800-677-1116 or visit the website to be connected with your local Area Agency on Aging, which can point you toward home-share programs, home-modification help, and other aging-in-place resources in your community.

● AARP: Home Sharing to Reduce Costs in Retirement: AARP's overview of how home sharing works financially, including survey data on how many older adults are already living with a friend or would consider it.