***WE CANNOT PAY OUR RENT WITH BIG IDEAS: AN OPEN LETTER TO BRIAN CHESKY***

[Rose123]

On March 14, 2020, Airbnb changed policy to allow guests full compensation for cancelled bookings as a result of the current COVID-19 health crisis. This policy overrides existing policies hosts have in place to protect their homes and livelihoods, placing the responsibility of an entire global health pandemic on their shoulders.

Brian, you say your hosts are “heroes”, but everyday heroism can take many forms, and among these is corporate social responsibility. You tweet that Airbnb is concocting “big ideas” to help hosts, but we cannot pay our mortgages, rent, staff and bills with big ideas.

The impact of your March 14 policy change will be rapid and far-reaching. The diverse individuals who comprise your host community will face the very real prospect of eviction. This impacts individuals who may not have another source of income. Or, they may have a hosting income, but are also active participants in creative industries. They are poets, painters, artists, writers, academics, musicians, dancers, ceramicists, bloggers and others who balance the economic precarity of creative work with hosting as a matter of necessity, not luxury. They are the same individuals who, reliant on a gig economy, do not have access to health insurance, nor the protection of employer benefits and sick leave.

Your guests have a refund at stake: your hosts, their homes and livelihoods. We ask you to protect hosts as well as guests. We urge you to reimburse hosts for cancelled reservations according to their cancellation policies. We as a host community do not believe that guests should be traveling in the current health crisis. We also do not think that hosts should suffer crippling losses. We ask you to acknowledge the loyalty – and the revenue – of the hosts who built you. And we ask you to consider how to best support your most precarious hosts, those who will soon be on the verge of eviction.

*** Airbnb hosts, feel free to copy, paste and share. Use the hashtag: helpyourhosts ***

[Sarah977]

@Rose123Your original post was articulate and well-reasoned. However, when you said "They are poets, painters, artists, writers, academics, musicians, dancers, ceramicists, bloggers and others who balance the economic precarity of creative work with hosting as a matter of necessity, not luxury. They are the same individuals who, reliant on a gig economy, do not have access to health insurance, nor the protection of employer benefits and sick leave.", that to me sounds like you putting forth the idea that just because someone works in the arts or other creative fields, that they are the only ones who don't have access to health insurance, employer benefits and sick leave, and the only ones who are hosting as a matter of necessity, not luxury. (as a self-employed person I have none of those benefits, and while I don't host as a matter of necessity, I can assure you the $25/night I receive for my private room listing, with only a 6 month viable booking season, hardly affords me any "luxury")

There are plenty of people who work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet, in dead end jobs where they receive no benefits and the economic situation as a resut of coronavirus, no matter what walk of life people are in or whether they are an Airbnb host or not, is just as devastating to them as to those in creative endeavors. 

You may not have meant it to sound like you were advocating for some special consideration depending on one's normal line of work, but it came across like that, at least to me.

[Susan17]

@Sarah977 

I hear you, and I'm sorry too if I mistook your meaning and intentions, but is there ever really any such thing in this day and age as a secure income stream? There are countless thousands of people all around the world, in many employment sectiors - both directly related and indirectly related to the tourism industry - who are also going to lose their jobs as a result of this crisis. A good percentage of those may very well have been in positions they believed provided them with s secure income stream, only to find now that the security they thought they had was nothing more than an illusion.

People do whatever they have to do to survive, and there's really no point in reminding them after the fact - when their whole worlds are coming crashing down around them - that perhaps they should have made a wiser, safer choice. Maybe there wasn't a wiser, safer option available to them at the time - or even still. And to be fair, when many of us got into Airbnb, there was nothing to suggest that they were going to turn out to be the bunch of unethical, immoral gangsters that they've since morphed into, over the years. 

One of the saddest things about the way this whole episode has been handled by the company, is that instead of uniting hosts against Airbnb's abuses, it actually has everyone at each other's throats. And as apparent as that is here on the CC, it's magnified by a thousand on other groups and forums. There's full-on war raging amongst hosts on this issue, and that's not how it should be, because the greater the divide, the less power we have. Regardless of our personal views on whether or not Airbnb should have been granting 100% refunds to guests, and whether or not hosts should have happily gone along with that, we should all still have been respecting each other's perspectives, and supporting each other's positions. For the most part, that hasn't happened though, and therein lies the answer to why we have so little strength as a "community" to challenge Airbnb's excesses. 

Either way, let's not you and I fall out over this! That would be a real shame, and the very last thing I would want. We strong, proud and hard-grafting single mommas gotta stick together!  :)) 

[Rose123]

Hi community,

Reading back over the responses to my original post, I want to thank everyone who brought their voice to constructively help each other at a really difficult time.

My heart goes out to everyone who posted their personal stories of hardship and loss.

This overnight policy change has, of course, been devastating, and we are only starting to feel the effects. Know that you are not alone. There are independent support groups forming for practical support and financial support, and there are also easily-found, external groups forming for legal support and legal redress.

Used correctly this forum is a powerful tool for emotional support, collaboration, and community building. I also want to thank the vast majority of contributors who managed to constructively contribute without judging anyone - and without spamming, trolling, or otherwise attacking other members. This thread was cleaned up last night by a moderator to remove a few unproductive comments, but I'm glad to see that even before this happened, so many of us were confident to share our stories and speak our truths. 

Moving forward, I thought to post a couple of links here which may be useful,

New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Emergency Grants:

https://www.nyfa.org/Content/Show/Emergency%20Grants

Freelancer’s Union: what freelancers need to know about the coronavirus:

https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2020/03/11/what-freelancers-need-to-know-about-coronavirus/

The NADA (New Art Dealer’s Alliance) petition for arts relief during COVID:

https://www.change.org/p/covid-19-relief-for-nyc-art-galleries-artists-and-art-workers

Thanks again, and let's join together in staying strong, creative, proud and innovative during the crisis.

[Rodney11]

Well, while we're all here fighting over the crumbs, here's who is actually eating all the cake:

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/?fbclid=IwAR0ZZ_lcC9iQmY64Ttsw_fmW74IOapcgJc9X3-QL_zGu4J...

I'd say a company valued at over $30B (well, maybe not anymore), is definitely part of the super rich club. 

AirBnB's enacting of the EC policy to override their Hosts cancellation policies is a great example of privatizing profit while socializing risk. A company that is worth multiple billions of dollars should be able to provide both guests and Hosts with compensation for forced cancellations.

For those of you hoping for a class action suit, unfortunately when you signed up to list your property on AirBnB, you agreed to the following clause in the Terms of Service: 

19.11 No Class Actions or Representative Proceedings. You and Airbnb acknowledge and agree that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, we are each waiving the right to participate as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class action lawsuit, class-wide arbitration, private attorney general action, or any other representative proceeding as to all Disputes. Further, unless you and Airbnb both otherwise agree in writing, the arbitrator may not consolidate more than one party’s claims and may not otherwise preside over any form of any class or representative proceeding. If the “class action lawsuit” waiver or the “class-wide arbitration” waiver in this Section 19.11 is held unenforceable with respect to any Dispute, then the entirety of the Arbitration Agreement will be deemed void with respect to such Dispute and the Dispute must proceed in court. If the “private attorney general action” waiver or the “representative proceeding” waiver in this Section 19.11 is held unenforceable with respect to any Dispute, those waivers may be severed from this Arbitration Agreement and you and Airbnb agree that any private attorney general claims and representative claims in the Dispute will be severed and stayed, pending the resolution of any arbitrable claims in the Dispute in individual arbitration.

While this precludes a class action suit, there is still the possibility of mass arbitration, as shown by the settlement received by Uber drivers in May of 2019.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/uber-reaches-settlement-with-striking-drivers-050919.html