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Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees
- batch12 5y agoNow if we can just figure out how to get more of them out of there. Edited: clarity
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jkestner 5y agoAirBnB offering accommodations is like the US government promising to take every refugee, only _after_ the airport has been closed off. They just gotta find a way into the airport, and we'll take care of the rest. https://twitter.com/Abihabib/status/1430231520820797442 https://twitter.com/Abihabib/status/1430231520820797442 https://twitter.com/ericuman/status/1430284770680913921 https://twitter.com/ericuman/status/1430284770680913921
- batch12 5y agoYeah, this is how we turn friends into enemies.
- coding123 5y agoI think there are about 500K Homeless in America, would it make sense to first offer about 20K of them some free housing?
- jsjdjdjj 5y agoAgreed.
- batch12 5y agoOddly enough, I don't think the owners would volunteer properties for that.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoThere's an idea: If you want to convert a dwelling to short stay accommodation you have to also make it available for x days per year for crisis accommodation.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y agoSuch contortions to require that the homeless be housed while banning sufficient construction of homes to house everyone.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoOr we could just, y'know, produce enough homeless shelters or crisis housing ourselves, through the government + taxes. Trying to twist the private sector's arm into doing this themselves is stupid, it's not their wheelhouse, just tax their profits and have the government do it.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoWell, with all due sarcasm: that seems to be working.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoIt's not working because we're not trying to do it.
- jdavis703 5y agoThis is how the civil reserve air fleet works. If an airline wants to receive military contracts it has to make a portion of it’s fleet available for emergency use. I’m personally not a big fan of these sorts of neoliberal public private partnerships. But at least with conventional thinking it’s not that bad of an idea. Not sure why you’re getting all these downvotes.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
- ayngg 5y agoHomeless people are never in vogue, and therefore less marketable.
- BobJackienine 5y agoOnly 5,000 are actually Americans the rest are just collaborators of the fake installed Western government.
- blahblahblogger 5y agoYea really, has Brian even been outside the AirBnB offices in San Francisco? I work near their office and remember a couple years ago they were offering their employees self-defense classes after several employees got attacked.
- Goety 5y agohonestly lol
- keithnz 5y agodoesn't really make sense, this is a temporary spike of people that need some kind of transitional housing. Really the governments problem, but fine if AirBnB see some value in helping out.
- not_math 5y agoThe Airbnb is a solution to a temporary problem, which is that there is a lot of Afghan coming to America and need temporary shelter while they find something else. The homelessness problem needs a more long-term solution than 25k shelters for a limited time. You can read about Toronto leasing hotels for the homeless if you want to read more about some solutions that are being worked on, for example.
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoGood solutions to the housing problem described in this article. Both Vienna and Singapore have good housing policy. https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore/ https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-...
- eat_veggies 5y agoIf you think this is some gotcha (you can't help with Afghan refugees during a crisis until you've solved homelessness?) then you never cared about the homeless in the first place, and are using them as a pawn when it's useful to dunk on the middle east.
- newbie789 5y agoIsn’t it kind of a gotcha to accuse someone of not caring about the homeless on the grounds that they… brought up homelessness? I did not see the word solved appear in the comment you’re responding to. I personally read it as a general comment about housing supply. Edit: To clarify, I’m happy about what AirBNB is doing here and support it fully. I think it’s possible to be concerned about housing from multiple angles at the same time though. I genuinely think it’s a stretch to assume that a person advocating for an additional large group of units literally translates to someone that wants more people on the street. Furthermore I find that reason to be far more convoluted than what would constitute an easy “gotcha.” “You said you want to help a problem and therefore you don’t want that problem helped. My proof is that you brought up the problem in the first place.” is something I have difficulty digesting.
- gruez 5y ago>then you never cared about the homeless in the first place That's a bit presumptuous, don't you think? There's nothing inherently contradictory about "we need to look after americans before look after refugees" and "we need to do something about homelessness". The only contradiction is that the former is a policy of one political party, and the latter is a policy of the other political party.
- shadowgovt 5y ago> and the latter is a policy of the other political party. Can you give an example? I'm honestly stumped trying to think of one concrete policy initiative put forward on this topic.
- gruez 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 5y agoMany of the visible homeless you see in cities aren't in trouble because they lack housing, they're in trouble because they have untreated mental health and drug addiction problems(which leads to their lack of housing). Giving them temporary accomodation isn't going to make their lives better in the long term. Giving these 20k Afghans temporary accommodation may actually make their lives better while they transition to permanent housing, because homelessness is actually their biggest problem, not drugs or mental health.
- Manuel_D 5y agoI disagree. Most homeless are sheltered, and the unsheltered homeless are largely in their situation due to mental health and drug issues which tend to persist. By comparison, these Afghan refugees are likely going to try and connect with the Afghan diaspora and get jobs and eventually become independent of this support system. Not to mention, the risk of lodgings being trashed by the inhabitants is likely much less - that is what happened when Seattle metro hotels were converted to homeless shelters during lockdown.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoCompared to helping these refugees? Probably not. Airbnb will probably house these refugees for a few weeks or months until they have more permanent housing from a non-profit or the government or they're simply on their feet. While refugees may have more needs than the average person, as a group they don't have the widespread problems with mental health and substance abuse that the unsheltered homeless population does. That doesn't mean we shouldn't help the homeless, but it does mean that's a much heavier ask, one more suited to either the government, or non-profits specifically targeted at the issue.
- jtsiskin 5y agoWhy is an American’s life worth more than an Afghans?
- Sebb767 5y agoWhile I disagree with the parent on helping US citizens first, I don't think it's generally wrong to put your own people first if you have to choose. That doesn't mean that other people are worth less, it simply means that, if you can choose one or the other, it's not generally reprehensible to choose people close to you, at least in my opinion. Imagine, for example, a natural disaster strikes and you're forced to either save the live of your own child or a complete stranger. Anyone would choose his own child (assuming exactly similar circumstances). That does not mean the other childs live is worth less. It's exactly the same thing if it's about people in your country or a foreign one - of course, your relation is less intense, but it still holds. Other comments explain why you'd choose contrary to this in this case, but I don't think we should assume bad faith in the parent.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoIt's not, but I think you could argue that people have an obligation to help out those of their own family/city/country moreso than people elsewhere.
- bane 5y agoIt turns out that's kinda exactly what they're doing.
- hourislate 5y agoCan you imagine if America spent 2 trillion (cost it spent trying to help Afghan people) on its homeless and poor. Could barely get them a fucking $1200 check after shutting down the economy for a year.
- jkestner 5y agoWish it had even gone to the Afghan people: “Between 80 and 90 percent of outlays actually returned to the US economy.” Your tax dollars went to pay defense contractors, construction firms, anyone who pounced on an opportunity. https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/international/mission-accomplished-the-war-in-afghanistan-was-great-for-business/ https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/international/mission-accomp...
- hourislate 5y agoWell, since it was spent on bullets trying to protect them from the Taliban, it did.
- slickrick216 5y agoThey don’t care about Afghans just scoring brand points. Businesses exist to make money and the fact they thought this might help there branding in effort to make more money says more about society really than it does about this company in particular.
- ekianjo 5y ago> They don’t care about Afghans just scoring brand points Two things can be true at the same time. Scoring business points AND caring about Afghans.
- czhu12 5y agoI see this argument in relation to refugees pretty often. It seems to insinuate that we are spending more on refugees than we are on homeless shelters. SF is prepared to spend 1.1 billion to address homelessness, which I think is just shy of the federal refugee program budget. The fights to combat exclusionary / single family zoning are in part to create more affordable housing. It seems we, as a society, are doing a lot to fight homelessness, but relatively little to help resettle refugees.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoDoes this settle the argument of whether or not Airbnb displaces local residents and drives up rents? Isn't that an ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by Airbnb?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y agoIs it not fun when companies big and small grab headlines by cynical offers like these. Presumably, once the PR stunt part dies, someone else is going to pay for them? Who I wonder will be that generous donor.
- kyawzazaw 5y agoit's temporary
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y agoCan you elaborate a little bit? I don't want to assume what you were trying to say or put words in you mouth. Is the accommodation temporary? Is it the offer? Are refugees temporarily here? Where is 'here' from the previous sentence?
- kyawzazaw 5y agothe accommodation being paid by AirBnb is temporary
- blahblahblogger 5y agoI'm honestly not a fan of this, despite how well intentioned it may seem (road to hell?) AirBnB is honestly trying too hard with this PR move, it boggles my mind that shareholders don't reign in corporate stunts like this.
- eat_veggies 5y agoWho cares? People are getting shelter, if even for a little bit. This is honestly the most boring kind of cynicism because you've offered no real critique and no consideration of the people who have been forcefully displaced and can now have a place to stay.
- daniel_iversen 5y agoAgree! Even if AirBnB didn't do it for the right reason (which I have no reason to believe they did - why always so cynical!?) the people in desperate immediate and "short term" need get help! (this is also why it's different to the homelessness issue, which seems more like a systemic issue that the cities and countries should honestly be ashamed of).
- batch12 5y agoYeah, unfortunately I default to cynic with just about all companies. I wish for a world where someone with the resources like this at their disposal thinks, "Oh shit, what can I do?" without thinking about the PR.
- Sebb767 5y agoWhat would be a right reason? In my experience, all reasons boil down to either someone getting money or someone feeling good about themselves. It's just that, in this case, interests align - nothing more, but nothing less, either.
- TedShiller 5y agoExactly. If a company got money for hurting someone, then we need to have a conversation. If a company gets money for helping someone, my response would range anywhere from "Good for them!" to "What's for lunch?" at worst.
- Trias11 5y agoWouldn't it be easier to make Afghanistan a 51st state? And let 'em keep their culture and religion locally instead of repossessing them?
- gruez 5y ago> Wouldn't it be easier to make Afghanistan a 51st state? That's probably an viable option last century (see: Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico), but colonialism/imperialism is out of style right now so it would definitely not be easy to do that.
- junon 5y agoAre you implying that the US has rights over Afghanistan?
- narrator 5y agoWould you prefer to stay in a hotel or a refugee shelter? That's what this campaign says to me at the gut level. Might be nice and altruistic, but it's kind of lousy brand marketing.
- kyawzazaw 5y agodoes't matter to me, if it helps some Afghan people get some help
- getlawgdon 5y agoI'd prefer to do business with a company that chose to help people in this way.
- Igelau 5y agoHotel. I don't quite understand the point you're making.
- narrator 5y agoBy turning Airbnbs into refugee shelters people will make the association between the two.
- villgax 5y agoThey haven't specified for how long & where, so this is just PR speak.
- TedShiller 5y agoOr it may not be. Too early to tell.
- jhallenworld 5y agoAirbnb is available in Kabul, had no idea.. https://www.airbnb.com/s/Kabul--Afghanistan/homes?tab_id=home_tab&refinement_paths%5B%5D=%2Fhomes&flexible_trip_dates%5B%5D=october&flexible_trip_dates%5B%5D=september&date_picker_type=flexible_dates&query=Kabul%2C%20Afghanistan&place_id=ChIJSW0ePExp0TgRKUQheDVH3-s&flexible_trip_lengths%5B%5D=one_week&source=structured_search_input_header&search_type=autocomplete_click https://www.airbnb.com/s/Kabul--Afghanistan/homes?tab_id=hom... Google reviews also interesting, nice restaurant in Kandahar.. https://www.google.com/maps/place/AFGHAN+SHINWARI+RESTAURANT/@31.6321556,65.7637336,16z/data=!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x3ed671baa0e28837:0x2759b21c9042aa75!2sKandahar,+Afghanistan!3b1!8m2!3d31.628871!4d65.7371749!3m4!1s0x3ed677deab7e71dd:0xbe74bf6a7b9eadf0!8m2!3d31.6313348!4d65.7667298 https://www.google.com/maps/place/AFGHAN+SHINWARI+RESTAURANT...
- perihelions 5y agoLooks like they have a rich trove of data on westerners and western sympathizers. I don't think Airbnb is thinking enough about protecting these rental records -- I can see the names and faces of previous guests even on public pages (those who left reviews). There must be tons of PII available to anyone who can access the Airbnb hosts' accounts. edit: Also, the photos are full of things that immediately imperil the hosts -- innocuous details ranging from music disks to wine glasses to risque art prints. Why are these pages still public?
- remarkEon 5y agoUpvoted. If anyone from Airbnb is reading it would be wise to lockdown these pages. Though it's probably too late, the Taliban is quite media savvy. Edit: someone commented, and deleted, a question about how to escalate this to Airbnb. I don't work for them, so I have no idea. But if Airbnb is going to do something like offer a place to sleep to Afghan refugees, sorry they've just stepped into a geopolitical game they might not be ready to play. Airbnb: delete these pages. While it's likely Taliban have already taken down this data, it's also possible they're too busy dealing with everything going on at HKIA that they haven't had time or they forgot or the guy who did it is busy doing something else. You are putting folks at risk.
- throwawaysea 5y agoI find it interesting that Airbnb has banned many conservative people and groups from using their service but readily make room for Afghan refugees. These discriminatory practices are always wrapped in virtuous justifications but are never applied to the other political side. And how does this move make sense when they could be doing the same for homeless people already in America and elsewhere, who are clearly deprived of housing supply by companies like Airbnb that have skirted regulations and potentially broken the law. Lastly this is so glaringly a PR move to basically gain amplified marketing via news outlets and social media, that it makes me despise them even more.
- LambdaComplex 5y ago> this is so glaringly a PR move to basically gain amplified marketing Congrats, you've stumbled upon the open secret of....literally every single for-profit corporation on the planet!
- matchbok 5y agoThey didn't ban conservatives. They banned trump terrorists and others who were trying to overthrow the government.
- throwawaysea 5y agoI am not sure what you mean by 'terrorists'. The dictionary definition of terrorism is using crime for political goals. A number of BLM and antifa affiliated groups engaged in terrorism throughout 2020 and haven't been banned from either social media or services like AirBnb. Some of the people I've seen post about their AirBnb bans did not try to "overthrow" any government and aren't terrorists. To me it seems like clear discrimination based on ideology, an offline version of the same discriminatory moderation we see on platforms like Twitter or Reddit or whatever.
- matchbok 5y agoLotta downvotes, but this is true. Sorry trumpers :)
- dang 5y ago
- hourislate 5y agoThese types of announcements make great headlines.
- foota 5y agoInterestingly according to the article a similar program was already being operated by airbnb.
- inasio 5y agoTheir stock had been pretty steady around 145ish for the past month and it seems like it rose 10% today on these news.
- remarkEon 5y agoThis is one of those things where lots of people, though judging from the thread maybe not as many as I'd expected here, will applaud. A wealthy, successful, American company is "stepping up" in a humanitarian crisis caused by the United States' misguided (to put it mildly) aspirations for a country that ultimately had little interest in western-style governance. And so it goes, these Afghan refugees will enter into these countries, and have a place to stay and recover from the trauma that they've assuredly experienced in the frantic exit from their home country. Eventually, though, they'll have to actually live in the countries they reside in as, one has to assume, permanent residents. I helped sponsor my interpreter's visa years ago when I finished my time as an infantry platoon leader in Afghanistan. He landed in [undisclosed location] and has a stable job driving for a trucking company. He hates it here. He wants to go back. Do you want to know why? Because we let our girls go to school, because there aren't enough Muslims around him, and because he misses his home country, warts and all. He left because he was afraid that the Taliban would kill him, and he was probably right. He's probably still right. We rarely talk anymore, which is sad, but that's the reality. There's a wide range of views that interpreters held, and to be sure mine is absolutely not meant to be a representation of everyone coming from there. I don't really have a point other than to say that resettling refugees isn't as simple as "oh just give them a place to sleep and some cash and the rest will take care of itself", like it's via osmosis or something that they inculcate the values and culture of the new "home" they find themselves in. This isn't software you can install, it's much harder than that.
- rank0 5y agoGenuine question: How did the United States cause the Taliban control of Afghanistan? The Taliban were in control before the US invasion following the 9/11 attacks. Although the US failed in training the Afghan military, it seems like the Taliban would be in control regardless. The alternative to occupation would be a more complete destruction of the country.
- mayneack 5y agoI don't think the parent comment is describing the humanitarian crisis going this far back, but the US is at least partially responsible for the pre-9/11 Taliban going back to the support of the Afghan mujahideen in the Cold War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_mujahideen#Relationship_with_the_Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_mujahideen#Relationship... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Taliban#Foreign_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Taliban#Foreign_inf...
- vidoc 5y agoThey are on a PR roll! I saw one of their billboard today with just "Thank you, science".
- TedShiller 5y ago"Thank you, science" is not a good marketing line. Because science is not good or bad -- it depends on what it's used for. A lot of terrible companies could say the same thing. "Thank you, science -- Facebook" has a completely different ring to it.
- ThinkBeat 5y agoThis is nice marketing. I doubt he has lined up 20.000 properties yet who want to do this. So that will be fun distribution: 1 to Alaska. 3 in Portland, 1 in Colorado Springs. On a more serious note. this is not a promising idea, Nobody has any real idea who these people are. What sorts of trauma they may have experienced? What their medical, psychological, or sociological needs are. There is also the tragic issue that inevitably there will be a few among them who mean to do harm to a country that occupied them for 20 years. Random AirBnB hosts who probably mean very well have no training or practice to do something like this. And once it gets real they will not want to either. It is not a hippie utopian meeting of the minds and "all is chill" It is real people, Real trauma, Real culture shock, and quite different means of resolving conflict. I hope Biden will not just dump the refugees into US cities. However, the camps that Obama, Trump, Biden are using now for refugees on the southern border does not fill me with a lot of confidence that the refugees from Afghanistan will get the help, care they will all need and the reeducation some will need. The state should be forced to build and staff suitable accommodations that are warm, friendly and safe. That are set up to help them through a process of adjusting to life outside of Afghanistan and towards a life in the US. They also need to be screened to help identify those who may have ill intent.
- da39a3ee 5y ago> The state should be forced to build and staff suitable accommodations that are warm, friendly and safe. Ah yes, because US immigration detention centers are well-known for being more pleasant than the private homes of the middle classes. You sound like a truly nasty "patriot" attempting to pull a thin veil over it.
- TheGigaChad 5y agoRacist Rat.
- Igelau 5y agoI wonder how you go about proving to Airbnb that you are an Afghan refugee.
- nintendo1889 5y agoThe state department knows everything (or they can find out via the NSA) about every human on the face of the Earth.
- TedShiller 5y agoThat's awesome
- TedShiller 5y agoKind of surprised this got downvoted. These refugees can use all the help they can get. I was so glad to see this.
- shimon_e 5y agoAirbnb doesn't own the properties. They should be giving credit to the hosts.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoPresumably Airbnb is paying for the stays. The hosts are doing a nice thing too I guess, but it's also not too different from regular business, since they're, y'know, getting paid.
- nostromo 5y agoI don’t know the details of this program - but in the past Airbnb has asked hosts to “donate” their space for special causes - like medical workers during early Covid. In that case it was definitely the hosts making donations, not Airbnb. https://www.airbnb.com/d/covid19relief https://www.airbnb.com/d/covid19relief
- alkonaut 5y agoThey say (it’s right there in the article!) that they are paying for the stays.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pyuser583 5y agoHonestly this is the sort of thing Social Media companies could be really, really good at. “Find all Pashto speaking Muslim families from the Kandahar area, currently living in the US, who have two extra bedrooms, and have lived in the US at least seven years. Rank families by likelihood they would sponsor refugees.” FB should be on this right now.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoYeah I'm sure Facebook asking those Muslim families how many extra bedrooms they have at home won't freak anyone out.
- pyuser583 5y agoFacebook knows exactly how many bedrooms it’s users has. If they know their address (pretty easy for FB to find out), the number of bedrooms is public record.
- tomaszs 5y agoThe proper title should be: "Airbnb will ask hosts to offer accomodation" It is great initiative but Airbnb does not own locations .
- alkonaut 5y agoWhy would you say that? If I bought 1000 hotel nights for refugee wouldn’t it be me offering them free accommodation despite the fact that I own zero hotels? The AirBnB spokesperson says > ... we will be paying for these stays ... So I think it’s pretty clear
- tomaszs 5y agoYou are right, i think this title is better: AirBnB will pay hosts for accomodation for 20k refugees. Anyways great initiative.
- kratermagee 5y agoWhy don't we provide free housing to our homeless then?
- kratermagee 5y agoIt's extremely generous of you to do this for foreigners, why not do this for the homeless here? I think we are going to regret letting these thousands and thousands of Afgans into our country. Maybe one of these thousands has a friend or cousin who you never know could want to harm the US... And now they have an in......