0:01  
With the cost of living in downtown Toronto on the rise, some homeowners and renters are turning to creative living situations. This is a story of Pam and Alethea.

0:17  
I've never lived alone before ever and I really don't like it. I'm very lonely and very sad.

0:28  
Because I live with my husband for 52 years and when he died was very unexpected and quite shocking. And I had to learn to live by myself, which I did for many, many months. Lots of tears, lots of panic attacks. He did absolutely everything. He did all the finances, he did all the garden stuff, he did everything, and never actually shared it with me. So when he died, I had to find out how to do the garden and how to do the lights and how to pay my Visa. I had nothing, I knew absolutely nothing.

1:28  
Yeah, I was wondering for my dad got a job here when I was 10 and so we moved to Montreal. And then I moved to Toronto, in 2018 for University. Yeah, I came to Toronto, I didn't want to live in rez, honestly, because they don't have kitchens and I like cooking for myself. And also it was really expensive. You know, like Ryerson rez I compared I lived in an apartment downtown, which was super expensive and I compared that with some of my friends who lived in rez. And honestly, it was not that far different.

2:01  
My family had concerns about it in the beginning, because, you know, they're thinking you got some strange person in your house. What do you know, but when I had an interview with Laura, who's a coordinator. And also I had seen the article in the Toronto Life, that's what introduced me to it. And then my son, who was a little bit worried about it was convinced because there was an article, there was CTV program, and there's also an article in the Toronto Star. So he knew he was legit, he didn't want somebody, you know, take advantage of me, whatever. So he was kind of concerned, but he's not now, he's fine and the other two were really happy about it, too. There's a bit of company, in my house and she cooks. If she didn't cook, I wouldn't be eating.

3:05  
 I found out about the whole show program. Because I was looking for a place in Toronto. And the friend of my mom's had seen the program on CBC I think it was. And so she told me about it. And I looked it up and at the time didn't have a website. So I found the website of like the the homeshare group that does it in all of Ontario and that's how I found out about them. This is our grocery jar. And so whenever we whenever we do like a joint grocery bill, the money comes out of here, and every once in a while like it runs low and then we decide on like, a certain amount that we want to put in usually it's like 20 bucks that we'll both put in the main thing for us has been food that because my schedule keeps changing because like I'm in journalism, right? So like sometimes I have to randomly cover something like and I only know a couple days before and so sometimes it's like I get home late and then you know just Pam cook her own dinner or does she wait for me to come back? Like do I even know when I'm going to be coming back?

4:20  
I think in the beginning we had to work out a couple of things that in the food department just like you know, but no, I think I think we've worked it out okay. I hope we have. I think we're we're good. We eat together.

4:48  
So what was wrong with your furnace Pam?

4:53  
When Johnson came down yesterday and

4:56  
Pam doesn't eat meat, or she doesn't like it like she'll eat it if she has to, but she doesn't like it. And I am like a huge carnivore like, spaghetti bolgenese  and you know, steaks and all that stuff like it was really hard to come in here because I had to revamp my entire like recipes. I keep a notepad, a note with my recipes on my phone. And I looked at I was like all meat I like Chilean shepherd's pie, and I was like, I really got to get some new recipes. So now we mainly stick to chicken and fish because we both like it.

5:32  
We bought a little bit of television, neither of us are that keen on it.  I read a lot and Alethea she has her studying to do so we spent some time together. I think has made me more comfortable about you know, when I know when I come home, she's here or she'll be coming home. Whereas before I come into an empty house, and it's very sad and lonely. So I don't feel quite as sad as I did.