Airbnb To Offer Free Or Subsidized Housing For 100,000 COVID-19 First Responders 

As global confirmed virus cases breach the 500,000 mark, with about 23,000 deaths, Airbnb has released a new statement that it wants to “provide free or subsidized housing” for 100,000 “healthcare professionals, relief workers, and first responders” who are combating COVID-19. 

“Medical workers and first responders are providing lifesaving support during the coronavirus outbreak and we want to help,” says Airbnb’s Co-founder Joe Gebbia. 

“We’ve heard from countless hosts around the world who want to provide a comforting home to heroic first responders. We are connecting our nonprofit partners, government agencies and others with our incredible host community to work together in these extraordinary times.” 

Airbnb is working with businesses, government and emergency management agencies and nonprofits such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the statement read.

We are partnering with our hosts to provide healthcare providers, relief workers, and first responders on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic with places that are safe, clean, and allow them to be close to their patients. https://t.co/7ZVfNmvgQI

— Airbnb (@Airbnb) March 26, 2020

Airbnb hosts can opt into the program to help first responders by opening their homes for free using Airbnb’s Open Homes platform. If the hosts are not able to offer their homes for free, “Airbnb will still waive all fees on the stay.”

The company said it has already piloted the program in Italy, with nearly 6,000 Airbnb hosts have already opened up their homes to first responders. 

“I applaud Airbnb for working under conditions of such uncertainty to provide housing for first responders and medical staff working in this pandemic. We are working to provide clear communication and resources, based on rapidly evolving knowledge about this novel virus and best practices on sanitation, in order to help keep communities as safe as possible,” said Dr. Larry Brilliant.

And maybe Airbnb’s subsided program to help first responders is really a ploy to bail out its “superhosts” that are up to their eyeballs in mortgages, now face financial ruin as guests booking their properties have gone to zero amid the virus outbreak. 

Watch the real estate market.

My neighbor is an @Airbnb super host.

She is on forums with other hosts.

Many of them have 10+ mortgages.

0 guests are booking their properties.

They are running out of cash.

— Spencer Noon (@spencernoon) March 24, 2020

I have no sympathy whatsoever for the Airbnb “superhosts” with multiple properties that are now in financial ruin because their greedy lil scheme has gone up in flames.

— CROWD SHAMING SZN (@ashindestad) March 26, 2020