Airbnb to launch new disaster relief registry in San Jose
SAN JOSE >> Learning from last year’s catastrophic Coyote Creek flood, city officials in partnership with Airbnb are building a new network to house displaced residents — before the next disaster strikes.
Starting in August, San Jose residents can sign up through Airbnb to offer space in their home, free of charge, to someone fleeing calamity. It’s a service Airbnb has offered for years — but always retroactively after disaster hits. The new tool marks the first time Airbnb is proactively building a database of volunteer disaster hosts.
The San Francisco-based home-sharing company planned to announce the new program Saturday at the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Boston. Airbnb hopes eventually to expand the program beyond San Jose.
“I was inspired by the thousands of residents who came out to help their neighbors after the flood to get back on their feet,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said. “With Airbnb’s help, we’re creating an easy tool for compassionate neighbors
to have real impact.”
When the water rose in February 2017, forcing the evacuation of 14,000 people and causing $100 million in damage, San Jose officials scrambled to find homes for displaced residents. Airbnb activated its Open Homes feature, which sends messages to hosts on the platform inviting them to volunteer their homes to families in need. But such a last-minute effort, restricted only to current Airbnb users, wasn’t enough. And that left the bulk of the massive burden on the city.
“It doesn’t help that we are already in the grips of a housing crisis, so there are extremely low levels of vacancy and extremely high costs,” Liccardo said.
The proposed solution to that problem is the brainchild of Henry Tsai, a recent Harvard Business School graduate who is completing a one-year fellowship as a technology and innovation policy adviser with Liccardo’s office. Following the Coyote Creek flood, his parents’ home in Houston flooded during Hurricane Harvey that fall. The two disasters got him thinking about how Airbnb’s platform could be better used to house evacuees. Liccardo liked the idea and reached out to Airbnb, and Tsai, the mayor’s office and the tech company spent months working together on a plan to make the Open Homes platform more useful.
The change Tsai envisioned is a major update to the free housing program Airbnb has had in place since 2012, which has offered short-term lodging to evacuees in the Bay Area and beyond. Airbnb activated the tool for displaced residents and emergency responders during the wildfires that ravaged the North Bay in October.
Last June, Airbnb reported that hundreds of California residents had signed up to house refugees fleeing war-torn countries, including more than 160 hosts in the Bay Area. That program helps families like the Almurisi family, who fled Yemen but were caught up in President Donald Trump’s travel ban and forced to detour to Ethiopia before finally landing at an Airbnb in El Sobrante. Those Airbnb placements often help nonprofits such as the International Rescue Committee house refugees who don’t have permanent lodging immediately available.
Unlike the original Open Homes initiative, the program Airbnb is rolling out in San Jose won’t be restricted to those already using the online short-term rental platform. Now, when a flood, fire or other calamity strikes, homeowners who already use the Airbnb platform receive a message inviting them to open their home for free to someone in need. But many of those hosts already have other bookings on the platform, meaning their homes are available only sporadically, or for a few short days at a time, said Kellie Bentz, head of Airbnb’s global disaster response and relief efforts.
The new program allows both Airbnb users and those who have never used the platform to sign up ahead of time indicating they are willing to open their doors to people fleeing a natural disaster or other calamity, refugees or people who need housing while traveling for medical reasons.
The same screening process Airbnb applies to traditional hosts and guests will apply to those using the new program, and hosts must honestly disclose the conditions of the living space they are offering up — whether it’s an entire home, a spare bedroom or a couch.
“We know that we’re just one component of the response,” Bentz said, “but we’re hoping that we can continue to make a positive impact on communities around the world.” Host a family in need Airbnb is rolling out a new pilot program, starting in San Jose, that lets hosts sign up in advance to house people displaced by natural disasters and other trauma.
Airbnb plans to start signing up hosts in August. In the meantime, visit airbnb.com/openhomes to learn more about Airbnb’s existing Open Homes program.