Airbnb mobilization team/community relations team

Yes, it's probably just a matter of time for many areas, but it is also possible that more rural areas where hosting does not really cause any concerns, may not take up the issue. The issue often arises either because of neighbor complaints or because a city recognizes that a large number of people are doing something that it hasn't yet regulated.

Thanks Eudora for letting us know about what is happening in Italy and in the UK -- it's frustrating to see cities take aggressive approaches to such a benign issue. I mean how does it really harm anyone, what we all do with our bedrooms?!! It continually exasperates me, the intrusive meddling of city governments in this issue which should really be a private issue between two parties doing business.

This post requested help from AIrbnb with local organizing:

www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-136336

Julie and Eric shared 9 months ago on New Hosts Forum

Julie and Eric


Airbnb Assimilation Team?

In light of an international cycling race coming in September and listings popping up like dandelions, it looks like our city is taking notice of Airbnb and starting to cite hosts who are breaking an obscure and probably ancient law of no short term rentals of less than 30 days “and to a group of people, in any combination of people, that doesn’t fit the definition of a family.”
I'd like to "reach out" to someone at Airbnb who specializes in helping cities become Airbnb friendly and put them in touch with my (thankfully progressive) councilman so they can send him a "How to become an Airbnb City" brochure.
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Yes, there is an Airbnb team which does exactly this. They notice which cities are starting to take up the short term rental issue, and consider regulation on it (or try to enforce old laws that don't fit, like the ones you're citing) and they can move in and work with hosts in that city, meet with government officials, etc to help steer the city in a productive direction. They are very busy since there are a lot of cities taking up this issue now. I will send you a private email with the email contacts that I have so you can contact them.

By the way, what you mention about people who aren't a family -- you've hit the nail on the head!! Congratulations on that insight. I have the same complaint, and I think it's actually quite a real problem, that cities tend to do this very real discrimination against people living together who aren't a family. Somehow this bias and this form of discrimination have gotten codified into housing rules and zoning regulations around the whole nation. I'm actually reading about it now in some books about lodging houses and guest houses in the 19th century -- people in the late 19th century began to really look down on housing arrangements that weren't nuclear family arrangements. So, (for instance) while it's common and quite permissible for a family of 10 people to live together, cities and their zoning rules tend to look down their noses at 10 unrelated people living together. Or for that matter even 4 or 5 unrelated people living together. THere is actually a legal distinction made in many cases, based on whether people are blood relations. I consider this so backward!

This would seem to be the same discrimination against "familial status" that the Fair Housing Act prohibits, except in reverse, as instead of discriminating against renters with kids, cities discriminate in their zoning rules against single people without kids, whose "family" may consist of their friends or roomies.

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Julie and Eric
Julie and Eric9 months ago
I thought that was also very odd and was trying to imagine why they implemented that particular wording – possibly groups of men batching it up, sharing a small living space in order to keep living costs down while they are transiently working (Gold rush, farmworkers)? Or perhaps to discourage the oldest profession in the world? I look forward to getting your email so I can help our city be smart in their implementation of short-term rentals, thanks!

Susan
Susan9 months ago
This is interesting. I guess the rules existed so that hostels and boarding houses were used instead, these would have bern regulated and taxed accordingly. It's also a way to prevent their town from becoming a kind of encampment as Julie says for farm workers or other seasonal groups. I think if i was Director of Planning in any town I wouldn't be happy with Air bnb either, all those town amenities being used without payment or control.

Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Wow, did your city actually use the wording in your quote? I thought you were paraphrasing what you saw as the general intent. To use that actual wording strikes me as unprofessional and overtly discriminatory. You might (perhaps anonymously) send your city copies of the Fair Housing Act law which forbids overt discrimination in housing on the basis of familial status, eg type of "family" or any resemblance to someone's own concept of the "correct" family.

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Julie and Eric
Julie and Eric9 months ago
It was a quote from a host who was cited. It's what he said the letter from the city said.

I think if the letter or legislation really did hint at that I'd ask my legislator to address that, or do it myself at a meeting.

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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
From what I'm reading, Susan, about boarding/lodging houses in the late 19th century (when popular views of that form of housing began to become critical), the things you mention weren't at issue. These homes were not in rural or suburban areas, but in cities. Various forms of "vice" were associated with these homes and the districts where they were located . For instance the "vice" of an unmarried woman living in a room in a house where an unmarried man lived in another room. Some of the homes which were supposedly reserved for single women, turned out to be brothels. Those who stayed at these homes were generally the poorer and those of lesser means, another reason to look down on such arrangements.

Also, to say these houses were run on a shoestring budget was often to exaggerate their means -- their proprietors in the majority of cases weren't owners of the building, but simply leased it to rent out rooms. (IN those days, very few people could afford to own the building they lived in) They were generally women, and were women who were looked down upon as doing something unseemly by tending house for those who were not their own family. THe rents and other expenses they had were very high compared to the income they could draw in, so the homes were generally shabbily furnished. The facilities weren't adequate in the larger of the homes, there would often be only one tiny bathroom for 10 to 16 bedrooms, and it was located on another floor, so a resident would have to go upstairs to use the facilities. The proprietors often were loaded beyond the point of exhaustion with all the work they had to do -- cleaning carpets by hand (Before vacuum cleaners), doing all the laundry of all the residents by hand (before washing machines), cooking meals for all boarders, etc. So these women made a desperate living and were viewed as desperate or unseemly.

So this style of housing of unrelated people living together began to be associated with boarding/lodging homes and shabby, neglected housing generally -- which if you compare it to Airbnb hosting today, there is little comparison. People who are doing AIrbnb hosting generally offer a home that is cleaner than it would be if their family alone were living there. THey make good income from their hosting business.

The book "THe Boardinghouse in Nineteenth Century AMerica" says this, "Boarding, which would become the bete noire of mid century moralists, was a familiar practice.....somewhere between a third and a half of 19th century urban residents took in boarders or were boarders themselves....even solidly middle class housewives frequently contributed to family coffers by taking in sewing, laundry, and boarders. ....perhaps bed and breakfasts provide the closest present day analogy to boardinghouses [note this book was published in 2007, prior to the start of AIrbnb....]....boardinghouses most often were converted dwellings or simply homes with extra rooms to let. ...only with the rise of the home as a cultural icon did numerous Americans begin to percieve boarding as a social problem."

So I"d argue that some of the problems we actually have with cities' opposition to Airbnb hosting, actually can be traced back to these late 19th century prejudices, when boarding was the "bete noire" of moralists....

Time to let go of the late 19th century moralizing, in my opinion.
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Also....and this is part of why I'm reading these books on 19th century boarding and lodging houses -- I believe that we as advocates for short term rentals, can benefit from understanding the history of a time in America when boarding and lodging houses were common and this was a very common practice, and not something restricted by "zoning" or other laws that discriminate against people who aren't a family unit living together. In effect -- my argument is, if it was okay for people of the 1850's to early 1900's to do then, why isnt' it okay for us to do now? If we can separate the attribution of "vices" and the moralizing about the practice, to just looking at the fact that 30% to 50% of families took in boarders or were boarders, that can translate in a way to saying that 30-50% of people were using something that was a less elegant and upscale form of Airbnb in those days.

ANyone wanting to study this issue to try to use it to advocate for STR's -- here are some books

The SEcret World of the Victorian Lodging House
THe Boardinghouse in Nineteenth Century AMerica
The Physiology of New York Boarding Houses
Boarding OUt: Inhabiting the American Urban LIterary Imagination, (phone number hidden)

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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
"Phone number hidden" = eighteen hundred forty to eighteen hundred sixty (those years inclusive)

Deborah

Stories like yours are unfortunately all too common, kasage. The fact is that decades ago, cities never anticipated anything like Airbnb, so very few if any cities already had laws on the books which would fit our situation adequately. In most cases it's a matter of cities attempting to apply laws that either just dont' fit our circumstance, or which, if applied uniformly, would result in virtually no one being able to host except those who apply for a conditional use permit and pay some $2500 annually for a standard B&B license...if even that is available.

The fact is that cities need to face modern times and pass new laws which take account of the sharing economy. They should not try to enforce old laws.

I recommend that hosts do not "come forward" and try to register or get a business license, until the city steps up to the plate and passes up to date laws on STRs. Trying to "get legal" before it is clearly legal to host can result in problems. Most cities will not try to hunt down and prosecute those who are doing Airbnb hosting, if they plan to revisit these old laws, but they may follow up on complaints. So it's best for hosts to try to avoid complaints from neighbors when they are vulnerable because their business is in a grey area of the law.

It makes no sense at all that one couldn't do property rentals in a residential zone -- for that would mean no one in your city could ever rent out property. I suggest you consider working on this matter with your town and also try to get some other area hosts on your side...numbers can make a difference!