New top story from Time: Airbnb Co-Founder Calls Offering Temporary Accommodation to 20,000 Afghan Refugees an ‘Easy Call’

https://ift.tt/3ysZgrA

Amid the continuing turmoil in Afghanistan, which has created thousands of refugees seeking evacuation, the CEO of the U.S. lodging marketplace Airbnb tweeted that the company would begin housing 20,000 Afghan refugees globally for free, starting Aug. 24.

AirBnb’s ‘Easy Call’

In his Aug. 24 announcement, CEO Brian Chesky explained that the company’s independent nonprofit Airbnb.org would coordinate this new initiative, funded through contributions from Airbnb, Chesky and donors to the Airbnb.org’s Refugee Fund. Airbnb.org was established last December to partner with relief organizations specializing in connecting displaced people to temporary housing.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb and chair of Airbnb.org told TIME that the company’s decision to temporarily house 20,000 Afghan refugees was an “easy call.” Airbnb’s key “assets,” according to Gebbia, are its generous host communities. The nonprofit’s history of temporary accommodation relief makes the company well-equipped “to respond to one of the most significant humanitarian crises of our time,” said Gebbia.

“Everyone has a role to play in responding to this crisis, including the global business community,” Gebbia told TIME. “Tent.org is a great organization working to mobilize business support for refugees and I encourage any business leader reading this to get involved to check them out.” Members of Tent.org range from ING Bank to ice cream manufacturer Ben & Jerries.

Founded in 2007, Airbnb, which is valued at $90 billion, now boasts listings in over 220 countries. While its popularity is at no risk of dwindling anytime soon—the company’s second quarter revenue in 2021 was up nearly 300% year-over-year—the boom in AirBnb’s model has been blamed for gentrification, over-tourism and housing shortages in cities around the world, from New York to Venice.

But Airbnb has also received praise for using its reach in other times of crisis. Over 25,000 people impacted by disasters or fleeing conflict have received temporary housing through Open Homes, an initiative launched by the company in June 2018.

According to Gebbia, Airbnb.org relies on the expertise and training of its partner organizations: International Rescue Committee, Church World Service and HIAS. To ensure appropriate safeguarding, the partners are trained on how to “find suitable listings, communicate directly with hosts prior to the stay, and are on standby for any issues that arise during the stay,” said Gebbia.

OLY-SPONSOR-AIRBNB-US-BRITAIN Daniel Leal-Olivas—AFP/Getty ImagesAirbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia speaks at an event in London on November 19, 2019.

How will Airbnb’s plan work?

While countries around the world scramble to address Afghan refugees—the Biden administration reportedly expects as many as 50,000 Afghans to seek resettlement—those that have been evacuated are in urgent need of accommodation. Gebbia claims that Airbnb.org and its partners have welcomed “over 200 afghan refugees and families to homes across the U.S.” in “just the last week.”

Airbnb’s program depends, however, on the complicated process of refugee evacuation from Afghanistan and the political decisions related to refugee resettlement. Commitments to welcome refugees greatly vary from country to country: while Canada has said that it will take in 20,000 of the most vulnerable refugees from Afghanistan, countries like Austria have ruled out accepting any further evacuees.

Airbnb does not coordinate directly with destination countries that are taking in refugees—that is the responsibility of nonprofit organizations which match refugees with housing providers. According to Cathryn Miller-Wilson, executive director at the nonprofit organization, HIAS Pennsylvania, charities are given hardly any notice to secure housing in advance during periods of crisis.

This is when Airbnb’s program is highly valuable: being able to house refugees for free for a week or two allows the organization to save the federal stipend allocated to each refugee by the U.S. government. These savings are “often what allows the refugee to then afford the rent” of their next accommodation, Miller-Wilson told TIME.

Hosts who volunteer their properties are paid at the point of a partner organization’s booking and Airbnb waives its service fee, Gebbia tells TIME. When hosts sign up, they are able to choose charitable rates for their stays, which are covered by contributions from Airbnb, Chesky and donors to the Airbnb.org’s Refugee Fund.

Gebbia says hosts’ response to the initiative has amazed him, with some offering their homes for free or donating to Airbnb.org’s Refugee Fund. This will allow the company to “expand the number of refugees who [we] can support beyond our initial commitment of 20,000,” he said.

Why are hosts signing up?

Scrolling through the comments under Chesky’s Aug. 24 tweet, many hosts appear to be offering their properties to refugees for the first time.

For Janelle Gueits, a 41-year-old filmmaker and entrepreneur based in Miami, the decision to offer her two-bed property to refugees was personal. Her grandfather fled to the U.S. after being held as a political prisoner in Cuba.

“He definitely inspired me. He came to this country with two babies alone as a single parent,” she told TIME.

By offering her property to the initiative, she hopes to offer a sense of security to people like her grandfather. “Feeling unsafe [is] a terrifying state that simply overrides your system and destabilizes you,” she said. “Something as simple as offering a safe home and in a positive environment can be really impactful.”

Shane Hartman, an Airbnb host with a four-bed townhouse in Edmonton, Canada, signed up to Airbnb’s initiative last week after being gripped by the news in Afghanistan. “It’s just tragic. It hurts my spirit,” the 56-year-old told TIME.

Aware of his relatively privileged position, Hartman was motivated to share what he has with those in need. “I’m sitting in my nice condo downtown in Edmonton,” he said. “I’ve got hardship… But when I think about what’s going on with other people, I go, are you kidding me? It pales. I want to do something.”

On an individual level, Gueits gets back a “profound sense of meaning” by helping in whatever way she can. In a wider sense, she hopes more companies move towards a model of “social responsibility.”

Hartman agreed: “You just want to scream at the government and say do something. But I know it’s not easy. The private sector could contribute a lot.”

Which other companies are helping out?

Other companies have stepped up to share their resources with Afghan refugees and nonprofit organizations. The ride sharing apps, Uber and Lyft, have donated ride credits to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), while online retailer Uncommon Goods is donating $2 each time a shopper selects IRC at checkout. The IRC will use the funds and services to provide extra support besides accommodation to newly arrived Afghan refugees.

Comments

New top story from Time: DOJ Reportedly Investigating Whether New York Gov. Cuomo Manipulated Data on COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths

https://ift.tt/3u8AJab (ALBANY, N.Y.) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced mounting challenges to his leadership on the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday as state lawmakers threatened to strip him of the power to issue emergency orders and federal investigators scrutinized his administration’s handling of nursing home data. The U.S. Justice Department has been examining the governor’s coronavirus task force and trying to determine whether the state intentionally manipulated data regarding deaths in nursing homes, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The people, who weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Cuomo administration had not been cooperative with prosecutors, especially in the early stages of the probe, and for months had not produced documents and other data the Justice Department had requested. The inquiry began months ago in the Justice Department’s civil division, and parts of it have ...

New top story from Time: Environmental Crises Are Forcing Millions Into Cities. Can Countries Turn Climate Migrants Into an Asset?

https://ift.tt/3sEUWCv When he was a child, James Owuor loved hearing the elders talk about the way life used to be. So it comes as something of a surprise that at 38, he is now the one tasked with the job of describing the Before Times in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Before Lake Baringo started to rise, before it flooded and stole everything he knew. “At the beginning, we just thought it was a bad rainy season, that the water would recede when the dry season came. It didn’t,” he says ruefully, peering over the edge of his motorized canoe at what used to be houses below the milky brown waters. Over the past decade, an unprecedented increase in annual rainfall—widely attributed to climate change —has raised the lake by 40 ft. (12 m), inundating nearly 22,000 acres and destroying homes, businesses and Roberts Camp, the lakeside resort where Owuor has worked for most of his adult life. In 2014, he watched the waters overtake the two-story-tall shorefront lodge. The restaurant went next...

New top story from Time: What Women Owe One Another on Black Women’s Equal Pay Day

https://ift.tt/2Vlj9D9 Given the durability of the so-called “ glass ceiling ,” it is apt that, when the U.S. government brought its first gender pay discrimination lawsuit, in the late 1960s, the company at the center of the case was a large New Jersy glassmaking facility . The company had been founded in the late 1880s , but by 1956 ran headlong into what it described in court documents as a shortage of male workers . The situation prompted the company, in an agreement with a union representing its workers, to hire women as “selector-packers,” forbidden from lifting items over 35 lbs. Beyond that one limitation, many men and women inside the company did the same work and were responsible for almost all the same tasks. And yet, they did not take home the same salaries—until the government’s lawyers ultimately prevailed at the U.S. Supreme Court in January 1970 , winning wage equality (and back pay) for the women. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The case established a cor...

New top story from Time: China Calls U.S. Policy ‘Misguided’ in High-Level Talks

https://ift.tt/3iPgwS0 TIANJIN, China — China came out swinging at high-level face-to-face talks with the United States on Monday, blaming the U.S. for a “stalemate” in bilateral relations and calling on America to change “its highly misguided mindset and dangerous policy.” Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng accused the administration of President Joe Biden of trying to contain and suppress China’s development, according to an official summary of his remarks in talks with visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. The fundamental reason why relations between the two face serious difficulties is because some Americans portray China as an “imagined enemy,” the Foreign Ministry quoted Xie as saying. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Sherman, America’s No. 2 diplomat, is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit China since Biden took office six months ago. She was having separate meetings with Xie, who is in charge of U.S.-China relations, and Foreign Minister Wang Y...

New top story from Time: To Vaccinate U.S. Veterans, Health Care Workers Must Cross Mountains, Plains and Tundra

https://ift.tt/3uavmaw A Learjet 31 took off before daybreak from Helena Regional Airport in Montana in late January, carrying six Veterans Affairs medical providers and 250 doses of historic cargo cradled in a plug-in cooler designed to minimize breakage. Even in a state where 80-mph speed limits are normal, ground transportation across long distances is risky for the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine, which must be used within 12 hours of thawing. The group’s destination was Havre, Mont., 30 miles from the Canadian border. About 500 military veterans live in and around this small town of roughly 9,800, and millions more reside in similarly rural, hard-to-reach areas across the United States. About 2.7 million veterans who use the VA health system are classified as “rural” or “highly rural” patients, residing in communities or on land with fewer services and less access to health care than those in densely populated towns and cities. An additional 2 million veterans live in remote ...

New top story from Time: Many U.S. At-Home COVID-19 Test Results Could Be Going Unreported

https://ift.tt/3jdyI9f Popular at-home COVID-19 tests from Abbott Laboratories and Quidel Corp., available without a prescription, were launched without a mechanism for reporting results to health officials, potentially leaving many cases uncounted by authorities as the delta variant spreads around the U.S. How many of the products have been sold in pharmacies and online and used isn’t clear. When Abbott’s BinaxNOW Self Test became available through retail stores in late April, the company said it planned to make at least tens of millions each month. The company last month said a group of COVID tests including BinaxNOW brought in $1 billion in global sales. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] While COVID testing sites and labs are required to report their findings, the Food and Drug Administration relaxed requirements for some at-home tests to speed their path to market. Abbott said customers are encouraged to report results of its tests, while Quidel didn’t respond to a req...

Coronavirus Vaccine in China Shows Promising Results on People, Immune Cells Developed in 2 Weeks “This is promising data, but it’s early data,” said Dr. Daniel Barouch, director of vaccine research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved in the work. “Overall, I would say this is good news.” “This is promising data, but it’s early data,” said Dr. Daniel Barouch, director of vaccine research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved in the work. “Overall, I would say this is good news.”

“This is promising data, but it’s early data,” said Dr. Daniel Barouch, director of vaccine research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved in the work. “Overall, I would say this is good news.” from Top World News- News18.com https://ift.tt/2LRebpt https://ift.tt/3aYjmyk “This is promising data, but it’s early data,” said Dr. Daniel Barouch, director of vaccine research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved in the work. “Overall, I would say this is good news.”

New top story from Time: The Green Knight Is an Extravagant Unicorn Tapestry of a Movie

https://ift.tt/2UHqxst In a guttural growl, as if possessed by a demon, a medieval queen reads aloud a threatening letter that has just been delivered by a gargantuan bark-covered warrior on an equally imposing steed. She faints as she reaches the letter’s final line; the paper drops to the floor and bursts into flames. Cinema! There’s nothing more ridiculous, or more awesome. There is no lettre flambée, specifically, in the late 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But it’s part of the embroidery writer-director David Lowery uses to fill out his extravagant unicorn tapestry of a movie, The Green Knight, a detail that makes this ambitious adaptation feel both lived-in and magickal, with all the self-aware grandiosity that superfluous ancient k implies. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Dev Patel stars as the aimless yet mildly arrogant young knight-to-be Gawain, who, as the movie opens, still lives with his mother (Sarita Choudhury) and isn’t quite sure h...

New top story from Time: Why Lorde’s Solar Power Is a Pop Oddity

https://ift.tt/3DdBK5t As a pop star, Lorde stands out for many reasons: her reclusiveness on social media , her emotional acuity , her idiosyncratic dancing . But one of the key elements that makes her so distinctive from her peers is more theoretical: her use of the mixolydian mode. Without getting too technical, the mixolydian is a type of major scale in which the leading tone—used relentlessly in pop music to build tension and yearning—is replaced by a flat seven. The mixolydian is a primary part of blues music as well as much of early rock: think the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” or the Doors’ “L.A. Woman.” But it’s much less common in modern pop music, to the point that it was nearly nonexistent in charting songs when Lorde brought it back to the top with the foreboding “Royals” in 2013. (You can read a more granular, precise definition of mixolydian on Stereogum .) [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Four years after “Royals,” Lorde achieved similarly huge success with the ...

New top story from Time: Sunisa Lee Is Representing America in the Tokyo Olympics—and a Community America Left Behind

https://ift.tt/3zIdc1R In March 2019, a day before her 16th birthday and just over a year before the Olympic Trials were supposed to begin, Sunisa “Suni” Lee appeared on 3 Hmong TV , one of the most popular Hmong-language news shows in the Twin Cities. Cushioned between her parents, John Lee and Yee Thoj, wearing her Team USA jacket, the newscaster asked, “Do you feel you have high potential to go to the Olympics?” “Um, I think. I’m not really sure,” Lee says. Her father interrupts, “The important thing is that she has as much potential as anyone on the team.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Now, two years later, Suni Lee is a singular talent in the world of gymnastics—poised to carry both the hopes of the United States and a community that has not always felt a part of it. Lee is the youngest of six gymnasts representing the U.S. in Tokyo and the first Hmong-American to compete for Team USA. She has advanced to the finals in the all-around, beam and uneven bars events...

My precise view

Search This Blog