
New Emergency Preparedness Partnership - jaxonrice
https://www.airbnb.com/press/news/airbnb-san-francisco-and-portland-city-leaders-visit-white-house-announce-new-emergency-preparedness-partnership
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Taek
Political move or not, I think this is an excellent thing for society. It
lowers the bar to providing your home as a resource to disaster victims, and
makes it easier for disaster victims to find recovery havens.

This is a good thing.

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deathhand
Political move to keep dissent quiet about Airbnb raising rental rates in
large cities and to stick it to the hotel lobby.

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chimeracoder
A couple of weeks ago, all the subways were plastered with ads from AirBNB for
their "New Yorkers Support AirBNB" campaign.

Not even two weeks later, literally every such ad that I have seen is covered
in angry graffiti about AirBNB (multiple handwriting, so it doesn't seem like
just the work of a single dedicated disgruntled person).

Ex:

[http://imgur.com/8bSdTcN](http://imgur.com/8bSdTcN)

[http://imgur.com/QW0RBFB](http://imgur.com/QW0RBFB)

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TheIronYuppie
Why the hate? Did I miss the stories?

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DINKDINK
The anti-airbnb side claims that airbnb takes apartments or rooms off the
market for people who want to live full-time in that city. (thus increasing
the price of available rooms)

The pro-airbnb side, I'm guessing, would claim: 1.) Why should certain people
(renters) get preferential treatment to live in a city over other people
(visitors). 2.) Are flat/apartment/home owners not entitled to do with their
property what they wish?

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nostromo
A smart move for everyone involved.

FEMA trailers for Katrina were a boondoggle. Costing $15,000 each, most were
never used.

[http://i.imgur.com/kdzzG8U.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/kdzzG8U.jpg)

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The total cost of ownership for many
of the trailers ended up being north of $100,000 or even $200,000.

[http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08106.pdf](http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08106.pdf)

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peterwwillis
I'm curious whether other organizations like Couchsurfing could hop on this
bandwagon. Even without a city-wide natural disaster, sometimes there's an
immediate need for local relief and people have excess capacity.

Here in Baltimore there was a street that collapsed a few months ago and
residents were sent to hotels way outside the city with no way to get to their
jobs, schools, etc. Luckily a week or two afterwards they moved them to hotels
closer to their homes, but Airbnb, Couchsurfing and other organizations could
provide relief for minor crises like that, too.

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bnycum
I know this seems like a good move, but I live in a part of Louisiana that
wasn't directly affected by Katrina or Rita that the victims of both retreated
to. I've gotta say I'd never do it, the amount of problems that resulted from
that was too high. Just imagine anything and everything trashed or vandalized.

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ktothemc
Yeah, but what happens when all of the police officers and fire fighters have
been priced out of San Francisco and can't get into the city from the East Bay
during the event of a major earthquake?

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freehunter
How does this mesh with legal efforts trying to shut down Airbnb? Is the
service being endorsed by the federal government while being banned by state
and local governments?

