Relief Organizations: Airbnb and Downtown Story

relief organizations: The company says it is not making money from the new platform and relief organizations that have partnered with Airbnb will help match hosts to refugees, according to Huffington Post Canada. The idea came from one host's request to open up her New York dwelling to some of those left homeless by hurricane Sandy in 2012, said Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia. Anyone who lives in the nearly 200 countries where Airbnb operates can list free space to those uprooted by war, persecution or natural disasters. The company built a system to allow people to do that and within days more than 1,000 such listings appeared. Airbnb co-founder/CPO Joe Gebbia speaks onstage during The Downtown Story at The Theatre at Ace Hotel during Airbnb Open LA. Photo Getty Images for Airbnb We realized that we could take this thing to a whole 'nother level simply by shifting from being reactive to being proactive,'' Gebbia said. Since then, Airbnb has done the same dozens of times across 17 countries following emergencies, he said, eventually deciding to make the system a permanent fixture of the home-rental service. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.