Living in boats: A postcard from Galveston County

More people are choosing to live aboard their boats, not only as a unique lifestyle choice in coastal cities, but also many are concerned about affording paying for a home or an apartment.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

For some people, living on a boat full time is a lifelong dream, waking up to the sound of waves, chirping birds and living a relatively more private life. Others choose to live on a boat because that is what they can afford instead of owning a home. Houston Public Media’s Julianna Washburn gives us a glimpse into what life looks like on a boat.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CALLING)

JULIANNA WASHBURN, BYLINE: Marisa Dietrich lives in a quiet Texas neighborhood.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)

WASHBURN: She does her dishes…

(SOUNDBITE OF DRYER RUNNING)

WASHBURN: …And laundry just like everyone else. She feels the comfort of having next-door neighbors.

MARISA DIETRICH: Hello.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hello. How are you?

DIETRICH: Good.

WASHBURN: There’s just one difference…

(SOUNDBITE OF BOAT ENGINE REVVING)

WASHBURN: …Her home floats, and all of her neighbors’ homes do too.

DIETRICH: It’s different lifestyle, and it’s not for everybody.

WASHBURN: For 11 years, Dietrich has been living with her husband and son on their 1982 Norman Cross sailboat at a marina off the Texas coast. The Dietrichs chose to move out of their eight-acre, three-bedroom house in San Antonio, fitting their entire lives into a 40-foot space.

DIETRICH: I think the main thing I like about living on a boat is how much stuff I got rid of in a house. And I mean, nobody needs two sets of pots and pans (laughter). But I had them.

WASHBURN: Yes, she lives in a tightly contained space, but she’s saving money. Dietrich says she pays $870 a month to live on her boat compared to the $2,000 a month she paid for an apartment while she fixed up her boat for a year. Dietrich is one of many looking for ways to save on the cost of living. The U.S. census includes people living on boats in their live-aboards population survey, which also accounts for people living on RVs and vans. As of 2023, there were more than 342,000 people living in this category. Sanitation crews that service marinas for a portion of Galveston County, where Dietrich lives, say about 140 people live on boats full time. One of Dietrich’s neighbors is David Brown who at one point owned a home in College Station.

DAVID BROWN: I’m a retired software engineer. I don’t make that kind of, you know, cash anymore.

WASHBURN: Brown lovingly named his boat the Electric Lady, since she’s powered by solar panels. It helps him save money. He enjoys the privacy of a boat, but it’s also more affordable for him than owning a home. He pays $90 a month to anchor his boat here.

BROWN: You see all these nice big, fancy houses, I guess you can get something like that, but I can’t afford one of those. And if I could, I wouldn’t want one. I’m a minimalist. I would hate a thing like that. How do you even clean that thing?

WASHBURN: Caroline Chung, associate director for Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, says people are increasingly looking for ways to lower their payments as housing costs have increased across the country over the last few years.

CAROLINE CHUNG: People might find alternative forms of living, say, on a boat, attractive because, you know, you don’t have those costs of land making up a large portion of your payment.

WASHBURN: The cost of a boat ranges from 50,000 to $250,000 and higher, says Don Mitchell, who has lived on this marina for seven years. The median home price for a single-family home in the Houston area is $325,000. Even with a lower cost of living, owning a boat can bring some challenges like the threat of hurricanes, leaks on the structure and costly maintenance. But ultimately, Dietrich says she wouldn’t give the lifestyle up. On a calm January afternoon, she invited me inside her boat. Everything’s tucked away to fit inside the boat’s walls.

DIETRICH: It’s a bed right here. It’s a twin-size bed, another one right there. So we can – quite a few people can sleep on this boat.

WASHBURN: She loves being surrounded by nature.

DIETRICH: You hear everything on a boat, the birds, the animals. There’s otters sometimes that you see out. No, I don’t think I’ll ever move back into a house. I think I might live a board for quite some time, if not for the rest of my life.

WASHBURN: And with nature all around her, Dietrich ends her night at the Sundance Grill with her neighbors, enjoying her favorite pizza right by the water. For NPR News, I’m Julianna Washburn in Galveston, Texas.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENYA SONG, “ORINICO FLOW”)

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