Today’s Solutions: March 29, 2024

The problem with Airbnb is that more and more full-time, short-time rentals are on the market in major cities, which means that housing can’t be used for someone who actually wants to live in the city. This is only encouraging mass tourism in cities like Amsterdam, Venice, and Paris, and makes a life for locals worse. A small home-sharing cooperative called Fairbnb believes it can solve the problems that come with Airbnb by working with locals and municipalities to create a marketplace that benefits people who actually live in high-traffic cities. Fairbnb would exclude owners of multiple properties who run their homes as illegal hotels through a one-host, one-home policy: For now, each home and host is verified in person, though that may change as Fairbnb gets bigger. Homeowners who list with Fairbnb will have to be registered and licensed according to local regulations. The co-op will also remit taxes on behalf of hosts. Finally, as members of the co-operative, hosts are owners of the company, which allows them to make decisions about company financials. As part of its strategy, the co-op will share data with cities–something other home-sharing platforms have only done in a very limited capacity. Best of all, half of the commission that Fairbnb takes from each transaction goes to a social project. Putting a co-operative up against a heavily funded juggernaut like Airbnb is no small task, but interest for Fairbnb is growing in places such as New Orleans and Portland.

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