What Is Airbnb.org's Plan for Free Housing?

Brian Chesky says Airbnb.org is going to try to provide a million nights of free housing a year, for five years, for people in crisis. The nonprofit's leader put the biggest operable scale at a million nights in a few years, which Chesky thinks would pass Ronald McDonald House and any government. The cost he was given was about half a billion dollars of the company's money. He says a public company had to be able to do that responsibly for shareholders, that doing good is good business, and that this may be one of the most important things Airbnb does.

The idea is older than the company. In 2008 he emailed his co-founders with the subject line Airbnb.org, before Airbnb had launched, already thinking about housing. Nothing happened for four years. In 2012, after Hurricane Sandy, a woman asked to host a disaster evacuee for free, and Airbnb had to change its system to allow it. Some hosts opened their homes for free. When a stay had to be paid, Airbnb raised money or used its own money so the guest still paid nothing.

He says the nonprofit now responds to about 170 disasters a year. It housed 20,000 Afghan refugees, 100,000 refugees from Ukraine, and 70,000 free nights during the Los Angeles fires. It also covers medical stays and housing for people leaving domestic violence. His parents' lesson was to be useful, and housing is what Airbnb knows how to do.