In the latest sign that the U.S. housing shortage is reaching crisis levels, a Bay Area startup is offering bunk-bed style pods at $800 a month for up to 14 people to live in a single home.
Each pod measures 8 feet tall and comes with a built-in fan, electrical lighting, a fold-down desk and charger for electrical gadgets. The pods are stacked two tall and have curtains that close for privacy.The internet reacted viscerally to the pods after an Insider article this week. Some users on Reddit's Antiwork forum called the setup inhumane and drew comparisons with cramped"pod" apartments in Asia.
Christina Lennox, 28, and James Stallworth, 30, founded Brownstone Shared Housing together in August 2021."There were over 20 beds in the house, six or eight in a room with each other, just Ikea bunk beds," Stallworth recalled."It was not good." The owner charged each occupant $1,000 a month, Stallworth recalled.
The company doesn't run traditional credit checks on their occupants, instead running a background check to make sure a potential tenant can live with others."[W]e evaluate people by the content of their character, not the contents of their bank account," the company's website said. There's no security deposit, making it easy to move.
"The pod, when they're in it, feels like their own space — it's nothing like a bunk bed because it's enclosed," Stallworth said."You don't have a concept of how many there are in the room."Stallworth said he wants to expand the housing concept to other cities, name-checking Brooklyn, New York, as a prime goal. He said the company has signed up 400 interested people in the market already.
The houses enforce a no-overnight-visitors policy to keep crowding down, Stallworth said:"Fourteen people is fine, 28 is not fine."Brownstone is far from the first company to try to make a desirable living space out of tight quarters. Co-living companies have proliferated in the U.S. as housing costs have soared.
It's here. It's finally here. We're paying almost a grand per month for literal bedholes in a wall