AirBnB – the home-sharing service that has single-handedly shaken up the global tourism industry – has just announced the creation of an in-house ‘humanitarian team’, with the aim of providing temporary housing for up to 100,000 people within five years.
Designer and Architecture for Humanity co-founder Cameron Sinclair has been chosen to head up the new team. Having previously led initiatives focused on the creation of buildings for communities in need, Sinclair was a clear choice for the newly-created role.
Sinclair has already worked with AirBnB on a number of initiatives for good. One of these was the much-publicised #weaccept commercial that aired during this year’s Super Bowl, which announced the San Francisco-based start-up’s intention to provide housing for 100,000 displaced people and encouraged viewers to accept people from all backgrounds. The timely announcement came just nine days after Trump’s own announcement of a global travel ban.
Under Sinclair, AirBnB’s humanitarian team will attempt to use the company’s extensive global network of hosts to provide housing for displaced people, including victims of natural disasters and political unrest. Currently, AirBnB has a network of approximately three million hosts. The company hopes that one million of these will register as ‘hosts for good’ as part of the new initiative.
