Airbnb to offer free housing to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees
Airbnb has said it will offer free, temporary housing for up to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine, joining a swathe of companies offering support and donations following the Russian invasion.
The home rentals platform’s nonprofit set up to provide housing relief during international crises, Airbnb.org, will partner with resettlement agencies to house Ukrainian refugees across the world.
The cost of the stays will be covered by Airbnb, donors to its refugee fund and hosts offering discounted or free accommodation.
“We know that hosts on Airbnb and guests around the world will be eager to stand up and assist this massive effort and in the coming days, Airbnb plans to share details on how hosts on Airbnb and the broader community can support this initiative,” it said.
Other companies are channelling their support by donating millions of pounds to charities helping those hit hardest by the Ukraine crisis. The jeweller Pandora has donated more than $1m (£746,000) to the UN’s children’s agency Unicef, while the shoe chain Kurt Geiger has given £50,000 to the British Red Cross, which is working with the Ukrainian Red Cross Society to provide food, water, medical supplies, clothes and shelter to those caught in the conflict.
Neil Clifford, CEO of Kurt Geiger, said: “This is a situation of human suffering and we believe we have a moral obligation to reach out and help in any way we can. In light of this human crisis, we will be donating 100% of last week’s Kurt Geiger store profits.”
Ukraine has received a surge in donations from companies and huge sums have flowed into the country in the last 24 hours.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is donating $10m to aid humanitarian efforts. It will also freeze the accounts of Russian clients targeted by sanctions, after Ukraine’s vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, called on major digital currency platforms to block crypto transactions among all Russian users.
“We’re blocking accounts of those on the sanctions list (if they have Binance accounts) and ensuring that all sanctions are met in full,” a spokesperson for the company told Reuters on Monday, declining to give further details.
Anonymous bitcoin donors have committed at least $13.7m to the Ukrainian war effort, according to cryptocurrency analysts, as an alternative to donations through traditional crowdfunding and payments companies – some of which ban payments to groups supporting the Ukrainian military.
Elliptic, a blockchain analysis company, says the Ukrainian government, NGOs and volunteers have gathered the funds by advertising their bitcoin wallet addresses online.
Gaming companies have joined the crowdfunding surge and the Polish developer 11 Bit Studios announced it would donate the profits made from its anti-war PC game, This War of Mine, in the next week to the Ukrainian Red Cross.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced nearly 400,000 people to flee their homes in Ukraine, according to the UN refugee agency. More than 4.5 million more could follow if the fighting spreads, Ukrainian authorities have said. The number of civilians killed has risen to at least 352, Ukraine’s interior ministry has said.