This chapter lays the theoretical foundation for the book’s analysis of shared housing. It begins with an exploration of precarity in neoliberal urban contexts, focusing on how the erosion of social safety nets, and accessible housing has left many individuals vulnerable to economic and social insecurity. It then introduces the framework of language socialisation, offering conceptual tools to analyse how house sharers learn culturally appropriate norms, behaviours, and communicative practices through social interaction. It also discusses how the language socialisation framework conceptualises identity as a social practice, an ongoing process of becoming, through which individuals gain the distinct linguistic and social competencies by actively participating in and observing. The chapter also draws on interdisciplinary literature from anthropology, sociology, and architecture to explore the evolving notion of “home”. It discusses the tension between the romanticised idea of home as a site of belonging and intimacy, and its contemporary reality as a functional, and at times emotionally detached, space.