Airbnb has announced a global initiative to provide 100,000 healthcare professionals, relief workers and first responders of the Covid-19 pandemic with free or subsidised housing while they carry out their relief efforts.
The initiative builds on its two pilot programmes in Italy and France, each of which saw nearly 6,000 hosts offer homes. Hosts can opt in to the programme and open their homes for free through Airbnb's Open Homes platform, which provides emergency housing to people in need. If hosts choose not to host for free, Airbnb will waive all fees on the stay. Hosts must follow a health and safety protocol Airbnb developed with medical experts, which will be updated to incorporate requirements from local and national authorities and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Airbnb said more than 1,500 homes have already been offered in the UK for NHS staff.