Vacation rental company Airbnb is offering free housing to 20,000 Afghan refugees forced to flee their homes after the Taliban took over the nation’s government.
According to the Associated Press, through its non-profit organization Airbnb.org, Airbnb is offering several of its properties worldwide as temporary residences for Afghan refugees. The company has also reached out to hosts who rent properties through Airbnb to ask if they would join the effort of housing Afghan refugees for free.
“The displacement and resettlement of Afghan refugees in the U.S. and elsewhere is one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our time. We feel a responsibility to step up,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wrote on Twitter. “I hope this inspires other business leaders to do the same. There’s no time to waste,” he wrote in a subsequent tweet.
I hope this inspires other business leaders to do the same. There’s no time to waste.
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) August 24, 2021
Airbnb.org was founded when Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in 2012, and a host reached out to the online vacation rental site to ask how she could offer her property for free as a shelter for those forced to evacuate their homes
From there, more than 1,000 other hosts offered their homes to people in need, according to Airbnb.org.
Since then, the organization has been able to find more than 75,000 people in need around the world a place to stay. Airbnb has host homes in around 100,000 cities worldwide and operates in almost every country and region in the world.
According to a July report from the United Nations Refugee Agency, since January 2021, an estimated 270,000 Afghans have been displaced, bringing the total number of displaced persons from Afghanistan to 3.5 million. This number is expected to have risen since the Taliban took Afghanistan over in mid-August.
As Christian Headlines previously reported, on August 15, the Taliban – a repressive Islamic regime – took control of Afghanistan’s government. This came following President Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the middle eastern nation.
Photo courtesy: Pixabay/TeroVesalainen
Kayla Koslosky has been the Editor of ChristianHeadlines.com since 2018. She has B.A. degrees in English and History and previously wrote for and was the managing editor of the Yellow Jacket newspaper. She has written on her blog since 2012 and has also contributed to IBelieve.com and Crosswalk.com.
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