This is naturally connected to family life and co-living, but is making a separate point.

It has always struck me as strange that there is a housing crisis in much of Western Europe, while the population is barely increasing, if at all. So what's happening? My educated and informed guess is that there are more people living alone, more single-adult households, more than there were in the past due usually to the death of a spouse. I've heard it said that there is no lack of bedrooms in the housing stock, just a lack of separate households. Hence, property developer have for years been buying large houses and converting them to smaller flats.

The point is simple. What if people in adult life, rather than living alone, could find someone to share their home? Even with remaining couples, when their children have “flown the nest”, what if they could find other people to share their home?

Yes, it's a kind of co-living arrangement, but starting from the place that the home owners may not be looking for another person to share, maybe because of a passive distrust of strangers. Well, what if we could find matches whose values aligned so well that they felt even closer than family? That trust built up quickly and naturally? I'm saying, we may be able to tempt people positively into sharing their homes.

What degree of trust would it take? What kind of values would need to be shared, to get over this barrier to wanting to share a dwelling in people who were not thinking of that?

Maybe if there were financial incentives? Who knows … but I would say it is worth testing out the idea, and if it shows signs of success, bringing in governments to adopt it as policy.