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Airbnb To Provide Free or Subsidized Housing For 100,000 COVID-19 Healthcare Workers (techcrunch.com) 39

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect people all over the globe, Airbnb is stepping up with a plan to offer free or subsidized housing to people working on the disease's front lines, namely health care professionals, emergency workers and relief personnel. From a report: The company announced today that it will provide "free or subsidized housing" for 100,000 people working as frontline healthcare, relief for first response professionals focused on stemming the COVID-19 crisis. Airbnb's effort will work by allowing Hosts on its platform to opt-in to making their space available, with any fees that Airbnb would normally charge for using its platform waived for those who participate.
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Airbnb To Provide Free or Subsidized Housing For 100,000 COVID-19 Healthcare Workers

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  • Or not (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zak3056 ( 69287 ) on Thursday March 26, 2020 @12:34PM (#59874146) Journal

    It doesn't sound like Airbnb is offering "free or subsidized housing." At the most, they are waiving their fees and allowing others to advertise free (or paid!) housing on their platform.

    • To be fair, their announcement read "Airbnb Hosts to Help Provide Housing to 100,000 COVID-19 Responders"

      Blame the article writers for making it sound like Airbnb was claiming all the credit.

      • Re: Or not (Score:4, Informative)

        by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Thursday March 26, 2020 @12:55PM (#59874260) Homepage

        "Airbnb Hosts to Help Provide Housing to 100,000 COVID-19 Responders"

        Which part of that sounds like a good idea to anybody here?

        Still, I'm sure a percentage of them are Trump supporters and believe that they'll be safe so long as the guests aren't Chinese.

        • So Airbnb requires 72 hours between leases with this program. If I had a, you know, extra house, that I wasn't going to need for at least two weeks afterwards, I'd be happy to let relief workers use it. It's up to them whether to trust a place that's been empty for 72 hours, but that's the current guideline.

          • How does airbnb validate a "relief personnel"? Since airbnb and the house owner are skirting various tenancy/hotel laws, what happens if that free renter refuses to leave afterwards?

          • by Kjella ( 173770 )

            So Airbnb requires 72 hours between leases with this program. If I had a, you know, extra house, that I wasn't going to need for at least two weeks afterwards, I'd be happy to let relief workers use it.

            Why? There's no indication the virus can survive anywhere close to two weeks without a human host. A virus isn't alive but it must replicate to stay viable, in most cases in a matter of hours. I think 2-3 days was the extreme if it was on the right surface with the right temperature, humidity etc. to preserve it as long as possible. Think about it, if an infected person would infect anyone else sitting in the same seat for two weeks we'd have about a zillion airplane / bus / train / tram / subway / taxi pas

        • May you suffer the death of 1,000 coughs on you by 1,000 Hillary Clinton clones.

      • I wonder what part of their catalog they will provide to people for quarantine. What tells me that it will be far from comfortable accommodation as in luxury suites [torontoluxurysuites.com]. I don’t like that companies are trying to cash in on hype. Just do your services efficiently and people will choose you. Is not it?
        • It's all a matter of which hosts (owners of the homes you stay in) choose to participate.

          And people need to get over the idea that companies who do good things need to be shamed. Of course they're trying to gain recognition for doing a good thing. But that doesn't take away from the good they're doing -- ask relief workers staying for free if they'd turn down the offer because corporate greed.

    • What the fuck else do you expect from Msmash?? No, really?
    • by eepok ( 545733 )

      Correct. TechCrunch's headline completely ignores the Airbnb press release headline: Airbnb Hosts to Help Provide Housing to 100,000 COVID-19 Responders.

      The HOSTS are providing free housing.

    • by Mitreya ( 579078 )
      You are right! That "reporter" should have their reporting privileges revoked.

      Hosts can opt into the program and have the option of opening their homes for free through Airbnbâ(TM)s Open Homes platform

      They are offering to collect donations of free housing from the hosts.

  • by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Thursday March 26, 2020 @12:36PM (#59874154)

    The initial blurb sounds more generous than what they're really doing. If I'm reading that correctly, all AirBNB is doing here is waiving their transaction fees to connect healthcare workers looking for places to stay, but at the same time putting more onerous (and probably costly) protocols on the hosts to clean the premises. It's still up to the hosts as well to decide what to charge for the stay, though in the current state of the hospitality market that is probably still better than nothing and the hosts will probably charge less to get some dollars in the door.

    All in all, this looks like a PR move more than anything useful.

  • It should read "AirBnB is waiving their fees for those crazy enough to open their houses to sick people".

    So, AirBnB gets to look good for very cheap, while the hosts take all the risks. That's one pathetic attempt at cheap advertising.

  • by ad454 ( 325846 ) on Thursday March 26, 2020 @12:44PM (#59874204) Journal

    Many residential condo buildings have started to ban Airbnb due, to concerns of having a continuous stream of new visitors coming in and out, and increasing exposure of long term residents to the CCP coronavirus in common areas such a entrances, hallways, stairs, elevators, etc.

    Especially when you consider that residential buildings and especially individual apartments which Airbnb uses are typically not professionally cleaned and disinfected to the same degree and frequency as most decent hotels which have permanent cleaning staff.

    This measure can be seen as a propaganda tool by Airbnb against increasing bans. Especially when you consider that existing hotels are experiencing record vacancies due to the CCP coronavirus pandemic.

    • "CCP coronavirus pandemic"... best recursion since GNU.

      • by ad454 ( 325846 )

        CCP (Chinese Communist Party) who's policies are solely to blame for creating the unsafe conditions in wet markets which allowed the virus to mutate from bat to human, and surpressing action during the first critical weeks to stop its spread.

        • Complete agreement, and I did know what CCP referred to. Still, nice (and hopefully meme-catchy) proper application of responsibility.

      • You spelled racist insult wrong.

        CCP stands for Chinese Communist Party.

    • Coronavirus concerns aside, I am surprise Airbnb has not been criminally charged by now.

      Airbnb is a work around for zoning laws. If you buy/rent a house and expect to live in a residential area except that there is an airbnb next door with rocking parties and porno shoots you didn't exactly get what the zoning law intended for you to receive. I cannot run a bar or casino from my home... so why should people be allowed to run a hotel or hostel from theirs?

      Airbnb should be perfectly legal sure, but also sub

  • It's easy to offer free when it's someone else's property you're offering and they've also got to meet the running costs too.
    • It's easy to offer free when it's someone else's property you're offering and they've also got to meet the running costs too.

      I think this is less about the offer itself and more about AirBNB trying to salvage its business model - "see, we're still relevant!"

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