Once a student is living in your spare room and working for your household, the questions get practical fast. Can they have a friend over? What did the screening actually check? And if it stops working, how does it end? In Part 2 of her conversation with JoeyCo founder Alison Donnally, host Kirsten Howe asks all of them — and gets straight answers, including who tends to apply for these arrangements and, just as usefully, who doesn’t.
Every JoeyCo match rests on two agreements that reference each other — a lodging agreement and a household employment agreement — and Alison explains why, in California, housing offered because of the job puts a homeowner on firmer ground than a standard tenancy would, pointing to case law built around live-in building superintendents as the model. It’s a practical look at what this arrangement asks of a household, and what it gives back.
Time-stamped Show Notes:
0:00 Introduction
1:00 Who becomes a Joey? First-generation students, former family caregivers, future nurses, and business students who’ve run the numbers.
1:52 Kirsten asks the question every host wonders about: what happens when it just has to end?
2:11 Most endings aren’t dramatic — different directions, changing needs, and an amicable way out.
2:26 A core JoeyCo principle: “We’re not just moving someone in and saying good luck.”
2:40 Did you know? The lodging and employment agreements self-reference — and in California, that changes a host’s footing.
3:00 The live-in superintendent model: the apartment is available only because that person performs a role in the building.
3:27 What a real move-out looks like — turn in the keys, leave the space in good shape, move on.
4:04 “These are not squatters.” The interviews, references, and background checks behind every placement.
4:45 Do hosts and Joeys share meals? Some hosts simply want to cook for somebody again.
5:24 The kitchen table comes back — the Chronicle-profiled household now debates big national questions over dinner.
6:38 Does a Joey have to be a college student? Why having a school in the picture helps.
7:20 JoeyCo defines “student” broadly — and just placed its first educator, a kindergarten teacher.
7:50 What happens when a Joey graduates? One May grad is making the case for recent graduates.
8:45 A match no one could have planned: a student studying PTSD, placed with a family facing dementia.
10:43 How to get started at withjoey.com — real people behind every form, and a home visit for every match.
11:40 Why JoeyCo is focused on all of California for now, and what growing thoughtfully looks like.
Get in touch with Alison!
Alison Donnally
JoeyCo
https://www.withjoey.com/blog/welcome-to-joey-co
alison@withjoey.com
Transcript:
I guess you probably also have to have a conversation about whether the guests can have guests. They’re college students; they have boyfriends and girlfriends, possibly. That’s probably got to be hashed out in the beginning.
Absolutely. Talking through the guest policy is one of the core steps in our house manual. Where people tend to land, a lot of the time, is no guests — I just don’t want people in my house. Usually that softens over time as you get to know the person. There are all sorts of softening that can happen, but typically people start with no guests.
For the most part, the students are pretty self-selecting into arrangements like this. I get the question, I don’t want a frat boy in my house, I don’t want that party-hardy situation. And no offense to my hosts, but I don’t think that frat boy really wants to live in their house either. It’s okay that you don’t want him, because he isn’t really choosing this either.
We get a lot of students who just want to make ends meet — a lot of first-generation students, a lot of folks who are trying to improve their lot in life, who want to work hard and care about their community. Maybe they’ve been a caregiver for a family member in the past, so they really understand what they’re opting into. A lot of them are pursuing caring professions and going into healthcare or nursing. We also get a lot of business students who look at it and say, the dollars and cents really work out here, I can run my personal budget and I know exactly how this works. They’re really conscientious. We have such a high professionalism bar that we get wonderful candidates for our hosts.
I would imagine that, as you say, they’re pretty good at self-selecting. You’re not going to get anybody you need to kick out after the first week. But maybe this has never happened, I don’t know — what does happen if a host or a Joey gets to the end of their rope and it just has to end?
We’ve had a couple of move-outs, but nothing super contentious. What tends to happen is a couple of things. One is that we’re just going in different directions. Life happens, needs change, and that’s totally normal. There’s a very amicable way for folks to move out and be done. It doesn’t have to be a contentious thing.
We, as JoeyCo, stay involved. One of our big principles is that we’re always going to stay involved. We’re not just moving someone in and saying good luck. We’re going to be there no matter what comes up.
One of the reasons we have the lodging and employment agreements is that they actually self-reference. In many jurisdictions in California, offering the housing as part of, or because of, the employment gives you more support from a termination perspective.
Like a landlord-tenant situation.
Exactly. There’s some case law in San Francisco in particular, but really throughout the state. Imagine a live-in superintendent — somebody living in a building where that apartment is only available to that person because they’re performing a role in the building. It’s similar for our agreements, and that’s what we point to.
But even beyond that legal backbone we’re trying to help hosts set up, it’s okay if things change and a move-out needs to happen. We can work with both parties to turn in the keys, move their things out, leave the space in good shape, and move on. So much of what we do is deeply ingrained in the lives of the people we work with. It’s housing, it’s care, it’s aging — it’s life. It’s never simple. Like I said, it’s different every time. But the good news is that we really haven’t had an issue where someone is refusing to leave.
That’s good to hear. And as they’re basically self-selecting good people to start with, you probably aren’t going to see that kind of thing. These are not squatters. They’re not people trying to scam somebody, because you wouldn’t go into this if you didn’t really believe in it.
And our screening — we do a lot of screening. A squatter could not get through all of our interviews, references, and background checks. You really have to want it to get through our screening, for the right reasons.
I imagine that’s very true. I know every household is going to be different, but do your hosts and Joeys have meals together? Is that something they negotiate if they want to? I can imagine, if it were me 20 years from now, maybe I’d like cooking for somebody.
Absolutely. It’s funny you say cooking for somebody, because we definitely have hosts who tell us everything is expiring in their pantry and they’d love to cook for someone again. I think that’s such a sweet thing, and that generosity of spirit is true of really all of our hosts. It’s so core to this being right for you. But yes, they share meals.
I was just talking with the host couple and the Joey who were profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle piece, and they told me they’re bringing back the kitchen table issues. They’re actually talking politics at dinner now, and really pushing each other’s understanding. They said they were debating whether we should nationalize oil in the U.S., how so many of our wars are based on oil, and what your opinion is on nationalizing the oil industry. More power to them for debating really heady, big political topics. But I think that’s what’s so beautiful about this. They’ve been established for a couple of years now, and they have that deep trust. They can push each other and understand what shaped your view on this, how we solve the big problems we’re facing as Americans today, and whether we can do that together around a kitchen table. It’s really heartwarming.
That’s very sweet. That’s a great story. They’re college students — is it a requirement that they be college students? I’m thinking more of the situation where, like this couple, maybe they’ve been doing this for a couple of years, the Joey graduates and he’s no longer a student, but it would still work for them somehow.
It absolutely would. The reason we work with students is twofold. One, their needs are very symbiotic to the needs of our hosts. Two, it’s very helpful for us to have another institution in the community that we can look to. We can work with administrators, we can talk to different folks, and it helps from a reference-check standpoint. We get to see how this person shows up on campus, what they’re like, what they’re pursuing. All of those questions — who is this person and how can we get to know them — are easier to answer when there’s another institution involved.
That said, we define student pretty broadly. We can work with graduate students, undergraduates, and PhDs. I get the question all the time about whether they have to be at a target school, and we can work with any school, really.
We actually just placed our first educator. Someone reached out who was a kindergarten teacher and really wanted to be a Joey, and in the same vein we expanded, because we were able to check in with her school and her administrators. It’s really about how we can know you and how we can understand you.
To your question about once someone graduates: certainly, if they’re doing a wonderful job, there’s no exclusion criteria. We’re not going to say, you’ve got to move out, you just graduated. In fact, the student who did graduate this May is really pushing us to think about recent graduates as a great opportunity. Launching into the real world is a tough thing for all graduates to do, and this is a nice soft landing while you’re thinking about where you want to be and what you want to do next. We’re definitely open to that kind of arrangement, as long as we can really get to know you and understand who you are adjacent to some sort of schooling or education background. That’s how we think about it.
Got it. I can see how that really makes sense, to be able to vet someone in a certain context. That makes a lot of sense. Any particular success stories you want to share with us? I bet you have a ton of really heartwarming stories.
Absolutely. There are so many little nuances to this business. I love it because you go into someone’s home and you learn the little nuggets about what makes them come alive. A life is full of moments and nuggets and stories, and the joy of this work is uncovering those and figuring out how they can be reignited in this work.
We have hosts who are mentoring each other in business. We have hosts who are deeply curious about each other. One of our students was going back to study native medicine, because she had worked with veterans and wanted to better solve PTSD. She was going back to study native medicine to really understand whether there were tips and techniques there. She was placed with a family where the husband had dementia, and honestly, her knowledge of how to defuse PTSD was so helpful in that household. She’s not a dementia provider, but she had this wealth of approaches — well, if we’re approaching this, let’s talk. She and her host, the wife, developed such a beautiful relationship and such a deep understanding of each other.
Again, you never know where those little nuggets will come from. It’s not as though the husband in that scenario was a veteran himself, or that he was experiencing PTSD. It’s how that connection and that personal experience come to life. It’s sometimes hard to predict. You create the right circumstances for those beautiful connections to happen, and then you cross your fingers and hope. For the most part, they do. There’s real beauty in the work, like you said.
That’s lovely. How can people find you? How do they get started with you?
Our website is withjoey.com — w-i-t-h-j-o-e-y dot com. There are real people behind all of the forms. I know that online today, sometimes you fill out a form and you never know what’s coming back. We’re a very human service. We’re not going to send you off to look at an app or read a bunch of content online. There are real people behind those forms. We will give you a call and we will check in with you, so let us know how we can help. There is a lot of content on the site, but fill out a form and we’ll give you a call. We can’t wait to chat with you.
And does somebody from your team visit every one of the homes?
Yes.
So you actually get a good picture — an actual picture — of what’s going on.
Absolutely.
That’s great. Do you hope to expand beyond the Bay Area?
We are working all throughout California, and we can serve clients all throughout California. We’re really focused on delighting California right now. Especially when things like the Chronicle article happen, we get inbounds from North Carolina and Texas, and we can’t wait to serve more folks. We want to grow really thoughtfully. We want to make sure we’re delighting every single customer every single time, and that if you come to us and ask for help, we’re intensely focused on making sure you have the best experience possible. We don’t want to grow before we’re able to do that for each and every person.
I think that’s a wonderful goal, and I hope soon to see you in all 50 states.
We will get there. I’ll let you know.
It’s so needed, and it’s such a brilliant way of solving a problem that’s very common. Thank you for the work that you’re doing, and thank you for being here. It’s been a really enjoyable conversation for me, and I know my audience has benefited from hearing you. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Alison Donnally with JoeyCo has been my guest today. I hope you all learned a lot, and I hope this has given you some food for thought. I bet you know families who could definitely benefit from this. JoeyCo — withjoey.com. Thank you all for listening, and I look forward to connecting with you next time.
Resources Related to This Episode:
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- Absolute Trust Counsel would love to offer access to our Incapacity Planning resource page: https://AbsoluteTrustCounsel.com/Incapacity-Planning/. We’ve collected our top planning information all in one place so listeners can find videos, guidebooks, blog posts, and a host of information with tips and strategies on implementing, planning, and protecting themselves and their loved ones.
- We’re pleased to provide a library of e-books to address common estate planning questions and concerns in practical, easy-to-understand language. https://AbsoluteTrustCounsel.com/Resources/.
- ASK KIRSTEN: If you’d like Kirsten to answer your question on the air, please email her at Info@AbsoluteTrustCounsel.com.
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