On July 14th, we went to San Francisco for a government voting on revisions to the city's short term rental ordinance, and the number of allowable days. “Overall impact on San Francisco is negative” said David Campos and with good reason. Just like this is happening in San Francisco it is also occurring across state.
Airbnb is in 34,000 cities and 190 countries. Including cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, and New York Los Angeles is the current city with a housing crisis. With rising prices locals are having a hard time staying in their homes and the tourists are flooding in. When people think of cities with the least-affordable housing they think of San Francisco or New York, but Los Angeles is the next possible expensive Airbnb take over. “The Los Angeles-Santa Ana-Long Beach Metro Area is now, by one measure, the most expensive big-city region in the country in which to buy a home; the average home price is nine times the average income.” Henry Grabar explains in his story about the housing crisis in Los Angeles. This further provides evidence that airbnb is now turning attracting high wealth tourists to the city increasing the vacant apartments and kicking low income tenants.
The city just builds trying to solve their housing crisis. In my opinion that may not solve the whole problem because if the city is creating expensive buildings for the rich, there is no possible way for po’ folks to have enough homes. Airbnb makes it possible for people to rent out their homes for nights, this is perfect for tourists. When Los Angeles is creating more homes for locals in reality they go to tourists, pushing out locals. This problem creates a chain of gentrification and evictions for low income apartments for redevelopment. This all connects and creates a vicious cycle.
From the hosts and rich cities like San Francisco point of view airbnb is an amazing way to make money. Tourists come creating business for many. It increases the wealth of the cities which is just great for the government of those cities. “...The country has become more unequal as the number of homeowners has fallen while the number of renters has significantly risen." said Lawrence Yun, chief economists for the realtors. This proves that for big cities there is an increase and demand for condos and apartments. When I Interviewed the elderly couple in San Francisco during the board of supervisors meeting (Campos vs. Ferral) I learned something new. They use airbnb to help them pay the bills and ends meet. It’s the only way they can afford living in San Francisco.
In my opinion airbnb isn’t the devil but they like many other gigantic corporations are the reason for so many evictions in cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and New york. People losing their homes to the rich and wealthy off those cities. The only benefit I find is that it brings people wealth, and I guess that’s enough for this to screw so many people over and cause damage in the long run. As Tina Shaft from the Migrante organizer committee brilliantly stated “San Francisco needs to recognize that they can’t live without the working class.” It’s just not San Francisco that needs to realize this. They need us and we’re not going anywhere.