Real-life Seattle ‘Full House’ family is the answer to the city’s rent crisis

Three and a half months ago, Seattle’s Julia Massey and Jared Cortese became parents to baby Carl.

“And this apartment started feeling really small and prices for rent were going up even higher,” Jared said. “We needed to be more creative.”

So they decided to rent a big house and ask Jared’s two brothers to move in.

“We’ve been assured that we do not have to babysit,” said uncle Tobias Cortese.

When friends found out that Tobias and Uncle Dominic Cortese would be moving in, the family started to hear the same joke over and over again: they are a real life Full House.

Admittedly, it is a little funny that this is even a news story. In other countries around the world, it’s normal for families to live together, but not so much in America where an adult man can be deemed undateable if he lives with his parents.

“When I mentioned to my mom what our plan was she said, ‘Oh, well that’s how they did it in the olden days.’ And I said, well that’s how they did it in the olden days here, but around the world this is how a lot of people still do it,” Julia said. “Sort of that your self identity isn’t 100 percent based on: this is my independent life, this is my independent house, this is my independent everything. It’s more of a community life and that’s what appeals to me.”

Everyone in the family strongly agrees that this is not just a money saving arrangement.

“It takes a village to raise a child and I totally believe that,” Jared said. “And I love everybody that we’re living with so I’m excited for him to be influenced by them.”

Jared and his brothers grew up outside of Chicago.

“Where we grew up, which was in a much more rural area, our extended family was over every day anyways,” Jared said. “Everyone was helping everybody out and that’s just a very normal thing for us. But living in the city we’re all really busy, we all have careers, kind of living the urban lifestyle. This seems to be the only way that you can really recreate that in the city. Even when we live together, we barely see each other. If my brothers want to be a part of my son’s life, living together is almost the only way that we can ensure that that happens on a daily basis. Otherwise, it can go weeks before they see him or we see each other.”

Tobias is 38, the oldest in the family, and Dominic asked him if he feels societal pressure to live a more solitary, conventional lifestyle.

“In general, yeah, it does cross my mind that at this age, it’s kind of interesting to move in with a group of people in a rented house,” said Tobias, baby Carl on his lap. “But for the most part, I’m completely comfortable with it. This is something that none of my friends are doing, but none of my friends are being interviewed for KIRO Radio!”

Everyone in the family, except Tobias, are professional musicians and Dominic plays the drums in two of the family’s bands. Julia wonders if other local creatives will go down this same road.

“With Seattle, it’s really huge right now that rent is raising and everyone knows it. I wonder if more people aren’t going to be doing what we’re doing. That they’re going to maybe come together with friends who they feel really close to, who kind of feel like their family, and say hey, let’s combine resources and make this work. So that they don’t get pushed out of living in the city if it’s so expensive. So there’s a chance that we’ll see more of what we’re doing.”