Help Finding Roommates in Philidelphia
April 10, 2017 7:42 AM   Subscribe

A friend of mine will be moving to Philidelphia on July 30th to start a year of service with City Year. She aims to spend less than $600 per month and knows that this will require roommates, but doesn't know how to find them! She's considering trying to live with some of her co-workers, but is concerned about maintaining personal boundaries if she works and lives with the same group of people. Can any locals in the area provide insight? Is there a secret Facebook group (or something similar) where roommates can find each other in Phili?

Not sure if this information is needed or not, but my friend is primarily interested in living in a place like this: http://universitycityhousing.com/osage.html
She's also 22 and would like to live with people who are somewhat close to her age, if possible. Students are probably her best bet. Any pointers in any direction are helpful. Thanks a ton, hivemind.
posted by snufflepup to Grab Bag (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
There's a facebook group called affordable housing:Philadelphia.

I've always found my roommate situations in philly through Craig's List- I think this is still the most oft-used way.

I have also heard that Americorps programs will assist participants with this- they should have some extra resources.
posted by bearette at 7:50 AM on April 10, 2017


For Philly, definitely Craigslist. It will be harder to find students looking for another roommate, generally, because the local universities have roommate pairing services and/or people live with their friends. Usually the situation where people need another roommate is for a summer sublet. Also, local university housing requires lease signing waaaaay early. Think November for a lease starting in June.

My recommendation is definitely Craigslist. There are a lot of recent graduates living in the city in shared houses (closer to center city) who find their roommates on Craigslist. Some of these will pop up in advance, but really a lot of people don't post until the month before they're looking for a roommate.
posted by DoubleLune at 8:11 AM on April 10, 2017


Also for areas to look - Fishtown, Northern Liverties, Kensington, and anywhere south of South Street will likely have yopro/recent grads looking for roommates in the price range and, importantly, with easy access to public transportation for getting around the city.
posted by DoubleLune at 8:14 AM on April 10, 2017


Affordable Housing: Philadelphia on Facebook, if she is willing to be a roommate, should get her fixed right up. Good scene, and a pretty great selection of available rooms under $600. She may have to be willing to act fast though
posted by Chipmazing at 8:20 AM on April 10, 2017


I know Craigslist has a reputation for being sketchy, but almost every person in their 20s I know, throughout the US, uses it as their main method of finding housing.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:43 AM on April 10, 2017


West Philly is a good area to look as well.

Don't worry about public transit- pretty much everywhere in the city has accessible public transit. Some neighborhoods are not centrally located, but she can always check with the City Year staff and/or use tools like google map to find a good location.
posted by bearette at 8:47 AM on April 10, 2017


If she identifies as queer there's also a separate queer Philly housing group, in
addition to the resources described above. Nthing that she doesn't need to live with students; lots of younger working adults in Philly, and under 600 dollars for a room in most places that aren't center city/old city is totally doable.
posted by ActionPopulated at 10:21 AM on April 10, 2017


(To clarify, the queer Philly housing group is on Facebook)
posted by ActionPopulated at 10:31 AM on April 10, 2017


If she's looking to live in West Philly, the problem there is that a lot of leases are tied to the academic year, i. e. leases run September 1 to August 31. If she's looking for a roommate situation this may be more flexible, and I suspect the further west (i. e. further from Penn and Drexel) you go the less this is true, but it's worth keeping that in mind.

Also, local university housing requires lease signing waaaaay early. Think November for a lease starting in June.
Both times I signed a lease in West Philly it was in mid-July; one for September 1, 2006 move-in, one for move-in around August 20, 2005. If she wants to live with Penn undergrads this might be true, but she doesn't. (I will admit that my knowledge is, as you can see here, a bit over a decade out of date.)
posted by madcaptenor at 1:00 PM on April 10, 2017


Response by poster: Great, thanks for the help everyone! I've passed the information along to my friend and she's finally got some direction.
posted by snufflepup at 4:59 AM on April 11, 2017


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