PARIS, Oct 29 — Airbnb said yesterday it will begin donating a dime for each reservation made on its platform to finance its nonprofit that helps house people in crisis.

The short-term tourism rental platform, which is regularly criticised for reducing housing available for local residents, expects it will thus be able to provide US$500 million (RM2 billion) to Airbnb.org over the next five years.

“It will vastly expand our ability to help people because it’ll bring in a lot more resources to the organisation” which has been financed from donations from Airbnb and its own fundraising, Airbnb.org’s executive director Christoph Gorder told AFP.

The inspiration for the nonprofit came from Airbnb hosts welcoming people displaced by Hurricane Sandy, which lashed the east coast of the United States in 2012.

The movement developed informally and then Airbnb.org was launched in 2020.

Since then, the organisation has provided 1.6 million nights of free housing to more than 250,000 people following disasters.

It aims to raise that to one million nights of free housing annually.

The additional funds will also allow Airbnb.org to expand its help to families travelling for medical care in more countries, survivors of domestic violence and US veterans facing serious illnesses or undergoing intensive treatment.

This new funding model will not increase what guests pay or reduce host payouts, Airbnb said.

Airbnb announced in September it was donating US$250 million to unlock more than US$5 billion in capital to invest in housing construction. — AFP