Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58315378

by boto3 • 5 years ago

148 93 5 years ago

bbc.com

batch123• 5 years ago

Now if we can just figure out how to get more of them out of there.

Edited: clarity

jkestner• 5 years ago

AirBnB 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/ericuman/status/1430284770680913921

batch123• 5 years ago

Yeah, this is how we turn friends into enemies.

TheSpiceIsLife• 5 years ago

Does 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?

A4ET8a8uTh02• 5 years ago

Is 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.

kyawzazaw3• 5 years ago

it's temporary

blahblahblogger• 5 years ago

I'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• 5 years ago

Who 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• 5 years ago

Agree! 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).

jraby3• 5 years ago

What are they actually doing? Asking their customers to temporarily house refugees. Seems like it won’t cost them much, and there are probably enough seasonal homes that go unused in off season to make this viable.

bpodgursky• 5 years ago

What boggles my mind is that someone who in all likelihood has done absolutely nothing to help Afghan refugees feels the need to chime in and criticize AirBnb for pulling a publicity stunt.

TedShiller6• 5 years ago

If 20k people are helped, and it also happens to benefit Airbnb, then that's fine by me.

If, on the other hand, Airbnb benefits from HURTING 20,000 people, then we would have a conversation.

Trias112• 5 years ago

Wouldn't it be easier to make Afghanistan a 51st state?

And let 'em keep their culture and religion locally instead of repossessing them?

gruez• 5 years 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.

junon2• 5 years ago

Are you implying that the US has rights over Afghanistan?

slumdev2• 5 years ago

It did until a few days ago.

Trias112• 5 years ago

No just implying that importing 20000 foreigners from totally different culture into US is not a good idea

geofft• 5 years ago

If the last 20 years of American presence in Afghanistan are anything to go by, no, it's not actually easier.

throwawaysea• 5 years ago

It may have been preferable for the Afghan people, the vast majority of whom prefer a democracy with election processes, and the vast majority of whom are young and mostly know the post-Taliban life under America's watch. It's unfortunate that America threw away its foothold in the region and has created another set of humanitarian crises - and I don't mean just displaced refugees but also women who will be brutally oppressed under Taliban rule.

narrator2• 5 years ago

Would 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.

kyawzazaw3• 5 years ago

does't matter to me, if it helps some Afghan people get some help

getlawgdon• 5 years ago

I'd prefer to do business with a company that chose to help people in this way.

Igelau2• 5 years ago

Hotel. I don't quite understand the point you're making.

narrator2• 5 years ago

By turning Airbnbs into refugee shelters people will make the association between the two.

villgax• 5 years ago

They haven't specified for how long & where, so this is just PR speak.

TedShiller6• 5 years ago

Or it may not be. Too early to tell.

jhallenworld• 5 years ago

Airbnb is available in Kabul, had no idea..

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...

perihelions• 5 years ago

Looks 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?

remarkEon8• 5 years ago

Upvoted.

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.

pyuser5833• 5 years ago

Checked out AirBnbs in Kabul.

None of the available places are by superhosts, so it’s best not to risk it.

You don’t want to end up staying in some dump.

hourislate• 5 years ago

These types of announcements make great headlines.

foota• 5 years ago

Interestingly according to the article a similar program was already being operated by airbnb.

inasio• 5 years ago

Their stock had been pretty steady around 145ish for the past month and it seems like it rose 10% today on these news.

remarkEon8• 5 years ago

This 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.

rank02• 5 years ago

Genuine 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• 5 years ago

I 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...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Taliban#Foreign_inf...

krustyburger• 5 years ago

“The alternative to occupation would be a more complete destruction of the country.”

You seem to be conflating a theocratic regime being in charge with the bloodshed of war, or as you call it, occupation. A great many people died and were horribly injured throughout the 20 year war. But you think the wrong regime would have been a “more complete destruction?”

adventured2• 5 years ago

The US didn't. The anti-US propagandists will lie and claim the US created the Taliban in the process of supporting the Mujahideen against the Soviets, which is a stretched fiction. Back in reality, there were and are many powerful regional factions in Afghanistan, many disparate groups of Mujahideen. The Taliban came into existence long after the Soviets left Afghanistan.

adventured2• 5 years ago

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.

Everyone understands that, including the Airbnb people. I don't think there's actually anybody mistaking the context as you're suggesting. Over a million poor immigrants - most of them de facto refugees trying to escape from very dangerous third world poverty in Latin America - enter the US every year with essentially nothing, looking to start a new life. Tens of millions of people from that context across the last 30 years alone. This is an old, understood, persistent process in the US.

remarkEon8• 5 years ago

This is an old, understood, persistent process in the US.

Which apparently failed quite dramatically for my interpreter since he still holds views that clash with the mean understanding of what's politically acceptable in the United States. Perhaps that's my fault. To that end, no I don't think everyone "understands" this.

tchvil• 5 years ago

All emigrants live that, isn't it?

All sub saharien africans cleaning dishes in our European restaurants live that shock.

My grand pa after his first day as a miner in Belgium, wanted to run back under the sun of his Croatian village. But stayed for his friends he met in the hole.

You land in a totally different environment, and have to adapt, and most do as they can.

aixi• 5 years ago

Not really.

I migrated from South America to Europe a couple of years ago and I didn't suffer any shock --- of course there are some differences, but I believe since both are western cultures the things in common dampen most of the shock.

inglor_cz• 5 years ago

I was halfway through suggesting that your former terp moves to a different Muslim country, but the

"we let our girls go to school"

grievance would be too much for most Muslim countries too. There is no religious ban on education of girls in Islam. He can move mentally into the 21st century or, well, sod off back, Taliban warts and all.

This is a serious cultural gap. We would not be able to integrate our own ancestors coming directly from year, say, 600. We won't be able to integrate contemporary people coming with mindset fit for early Middle Ages, unless they are willing to shed it.

Which is unlikely in adults. I wouldn't be able to remake myself to become a good Taliban fighter either, and I wouldn't be willing to. If your former terp sees us as degenerate and godless, he will cling to his old ways bitterly.

Shindi• 5 years ago

I'm from a poor country, currently live in the US and my parents have astonishingly "old-school" beliefs to put it lightly - similar to your interpreter. While it's frustrating to see people not take advantage of the freedoms Americans have, and to squander their new opportunity, reject American values, refuse to learn English and integrate, etc, we should absolutely let these people in because it's their children that will benefit from their new homes.

I saw where my parents come from vs the US, and with the fresh perspective of a child absolutely realized how lucky I am.

Now I'm a high achieving worker, donates heavily to charity (EA ftw), and mentors similar people.

I really hope people have patience for refugees like your interpreter because while it's understandable very frustrating watching their life happen, please think of their children who will undoubtably appreciate the US a ton more.

remarkEon8• 5 years ago

Frankly, my patience has run out. If spending a year with Americans, in a war, isn't enough to divest oneself of deeply held cultural beliefs like this then it's time to admit reality. He doesn't belong here.

please think of their children who will undoubtably appreciate the US a ton more.

Why do you think this is assured? If he were to marry and have children here in the US it would be with someone who holds views culturally proximate to his. I think this event is unlikely, but it's not impossible. Is your claim that US cultural propaganda is so powerful that children will ignore their upbringing? It seems like you're saying the children will appreciate the US relative to the experience of their parents in their home country. But if they have no experience of that home country then what are they comparing it to?

vidoc• 5 years ago

They are on a PR roll! I saw one of their billboard today with just "Thank you, science".

TedShiller6• 5 years 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• 5 years ago

This 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• 5 years 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.

Igelau2• 5 years ago

I wonder how you go about proving to Airbnb that you are an Afghan refugee.

nintendo1889• 5 years ago

The state department knows everything (or they can find out via the NSA) about every human on the face of the Earth.

TedShiller6• 5 years ago

That's awesome

TedShiller6• 5 years ago

Kind of surprised this got downvoted. These refugees can use all the help they can get. I was so glad to see this.

shimon_e• 5 years ago

Airbnb doesn't own the properties. They should be giving credit to the hosts.

TulliusCicero2• 5 years ago

Presumably 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• 5 years ago

I 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

pyuser5833• 5 years ago

Honestly 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.

TulliusCicero2• 5 years ago

Yeah I'm sure Facebook asking those Muslim families how many extra bedrooms they have at home won't freak anyone out.

pyuser5833• 5 years ago

Facebook 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.

tomaszs2• 5 years ago

The proper title should be: "Airbnb will ask hosts to offer accomodation"

It is great initiative but Airbnb does not own locations .

alkonaut2• 5 years ago

Why 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

tomaszs2• 5 years ago

You are right, i think this title is better:

AirBnB will pay hosts for accomodation for 20k refugees.

Anyways great initiative.

kratermagee2• 5 years ago

Why don't we provide free housing to our homeless then?

kratermagee2• 5 years ago

It'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......

Airbnb offers free accommodation for 20k Afghan refugees

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