San Francisco Hates Airbnb, But Voted to Keep It Anyway

Airbnb's San Francisco office is objectively beautiful. The converted warehouse's high ceilings are awe-inspiring. The wall in the reception area is covered by a forest of greenery that's a living work of art. One of the conference rooms is a geodesic dome. There's a stuffed antelope head hanging in the men's bathroom, and employees have the luxury of hanging out in "padded reading nooks," whatever those might be.

Less than a 30-second walk away from the offices, there's a homeless encampment. When I visited the area yesterday around 6 p.m., many of the tents had already been zipped up.

This juxtaposition of architectural beauty and abject poverty is an appropriate illustration of a broader debate over housing and inequality in San Francisco, a debate that reached a frenzied pitch this week with the city's vote on Proposition F, a ballot measure that would have severely restricted short-term rentals in the city. Prop F was ultimately defeated last night, with 55 percent of San Francisco voters casting ballots against the measure.

Effectively, a vote for Prop F was a vote against Airbnb, which goes a long way towards explaining the chaos at the company's headquarters on Monday. Protesters flooded Airbnb's lobby, releasing house-shaped balloons that blamed the company for adding to San Francisco's complicated housing problems. There was chanting. There was drumming.

It's hard to deny that Airbnb has caused added issues for the city's housing situation. Landlords have discovered that they can make more money through Airbnb than by renting to long-term tenants, and many have essentially become mini-hoteliers without having to pay the taxes usually associated with running a hotel. In July, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that at least 350 homes in the city were listed as full-time vacation rentals on Airbnb. Some landlords are even allegedly removing long-term tenants in order to free up apartments and houses to rent on Airbnb.

When I paid a visit to the AirBnb headquarters Tuesday, the place was spotless. "Does it look like there's a protest here?" a receptionist said when I asked her about Monday's tumult. Before I could ask her any more questions, she told me that neither she nor anyone else in the building had a comment on Prop F. Did she see anything firsthand? "I was off," she replied.

With no one at Airbnb's office willing to talk to me, I headed a mile over to City Hall, where voters were casting ballots on Prop F. "This is one of my last votes in the city," said Michelle Gurisch, a San Francisco resident who told me she was being forced out of the city due to high costs. She voted yes on Prop F in the hopes that it would end unfair rental practices. As we spoke, she smoked a cigarette and fiddled with a piece of luggage at her feet, as if she was literally about to leave San Francisco after casting her vote. (She told me she doesn't plan to move until some time next year.)

"I voted yes," said another woman I talked to. She was caucasian, in her 30s, and walking quickly. "It was for a lot of reasons," she said, squeezing my arm, "but I should really go." Other people walking in and out of the building gave similar answers or ignored me entirely.

On the steps of City Hall, I spoke to a man clutching a smart phone and a pillow, who said he had no opinion on Prop F because he hadn't read up on each side's position. He would definitely do that before the election happened later in the week, though, he said.

"But the election's today," I told him, pointing to the massive red, white, and blue lights illuminating the building.

"Is it?" he asked. "I guess I missed it." He sat down on the steps and began typing something on his phone.

In the hour I stood in front of City Hall, lit up like an American Flag to remind people that an election was in progress, not one person admitted to me that they had voted against Prop F. Some people were open about voting yes, while others very gently told me to fuck off—but no one admitted to voting no.

That's perhaps not surprising. In the lead up to Tuesday's vote, Airbnb did little to endear itself to the city or its voters. The company launched a controversial campaign against Prop F that asked city residents to be grateful for the taxes short-term rentals provide for the city, implying that this revenue paid for public services like schools, trees, and libraries. (The offending ads were eventually removed.)

Then there are the horror stories, such as the case of a couple who left for Burning Man only to have their house-sitter turn around and rent their residence for $400 a night. Or the Oakland Airbnb host who returned to his apartment to find holes in his walls and "meth pipes everywhere". Or the San Francisco Airbnb host who had $35,000 in valuables stolen from her apartment. The list goes on.

Chill billboard, — ｊｄｅｎ (@jden415)October 22, 2015

But while the company doesn't exactly have the best reputation in town, it's not necessarily clear that Prop F would have made things better in the long run. In addition to requiring Airbnb to remove any listings from its site that had been occupied by short-term renters for more than 75 days (the previous limit on short-term rentals was 90 days), it also would have allowed neighbors to sue each other for violating the limit. There's a chance that this could have had the unintended consequence of allowing people with the means to unjustly punish their neighbors over petty grievances.

From this standpoint, it's understandable why people may have felt uncomfortable sharing how they voted: Who wants to choose between letting the assholes win or potentially letting other assholes win, just in a different way?

The closest anyone came to admitting their ambivalence on the issue was a woman named Isis. She told me she was a mother of two who had recently had to move into her father's one-room in-law unit when her rent became too high. Her children are ages 10 and 18; she's in a relationship. She, her partner, and her children share the space.

Isis, who's an immigrant from El Salvador and a 30-year San Francisco resident, told me she made a promise to herself to vote when she was granted citizenship in 2000. She's kept her word for over a decade and a half. She was looking over the ballots when I approached her. She told me she knew people who used Airbnb as a legitimate way to make money, but, as a victim of the city's creeping costs, she was unsure whether it was actually any good for the community.

"How much does your friend charge per night?" I asked.

"65 dollars," she said.

"Would you be able to pay that on a monthly basis?"

"No," she laughed. "That's why I'm torn."

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