TO:

Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners

FROM:

Laura Spanjian, Airbnb Public Policy Manager

DATE:

January 24, 2017

RE:

Working together to protect long-term housing in Portland

Airbnb is committed to promoting responsible hosting and working with city leaders to protect
long-term housing stock in Portland. Like you, we are concerned about Portland’s housing
affordability crisis and unwelcome commercial operators who may be converting housing to
illegal hotels on our platform and others.
While we believe the best solution is a comprehensive, multi-pronged approach, we also believe
that as a company and a community, we have an obligation to proactively address these
challenges. Over the last six months, we have tested product-based approaches to address
similar concerns. In November, we launched our One Host, One Home product in New York and
San Francisco, which limits hosts to advertising listings at just one singular address on our
platform.
We are excited to announce today that we will be launching the One Host, One Home policy
and product in Portland, to address unwanted commercial activity on our platform, effective
January 30.

One Host, One Home
As part of the One Host, One Home policy, new hosts will only be permitted to advertise listings
at one unique City of Portland address on our platform. Ahead of the implementation of this
product in Portland, our team will contact existing hosts with listings at multiple addresses to
identify and remove unwelcome commercial operators and direct them to visit our ​Help Center
Article​, explaining our policy and process for requesting exemptions for certain permitted
listings.

[ MEMO: A new product for Portland - One Host, One Home ]
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 Hosts with legitimate reasons to have listings at different addresses -- i.e. helping a friend or
relative manage their short-term rental, boutique hotels, traditional bed and breakfasts, among
others -- can request exemptions, which will be reviewed by our team.

Next Steps
This product launch is a continuation of our commitment to promoting responsible hosting in
Portland. As we have shared with you, we have proactively removed 44 unwanted commercial
listings over the last year and continue to do so, and have dedicated significant resources to
helping our host community register with the city. We have held 29 town hall meetings and
workshops to explain the registration process, called over 2000 hosts to encourage them to
register, and convened scores of meetings with individual hosts to help walk them through the
required registration steps.
However, the compliance remains arduous, at best. Currently, a host that wants to share his or
her home -- even for just one weekend each year -- is required to undergo a complicated and
bureaucratic process that requires them to obtain a city inspection, business license, ASTR
license, and a tax certificate, as well as mail notifications to their neighbors, neighborhood
association and neighborhood coalition.​ Hosts have told us the current registration process is
cumbersome and confusing to navigate. Others have expressed privacy concerns about
allowing city inspectors to come into their homes. It is for these reasons that we hope to work
with the city government to simplify the short term rental permitting process, creating a process
similar to those in other cities, most recently Chicago and New Orleans, that streamline and
simplify the process while giving those cities the tools they need to enforce the rules.
The vast majority of Airbnb hosts in Portland are hard-working, middle-class residents who
share their extra space to earn money and make ends meet. Local hosts use more than h​alf of
their Airbnb income to pay their rent or mortgage and other regular household bills and
expenses. Home sharing also helps strengthen the community, driving over $
​ 128.5 million in
economic impact​ to the city, including $118 million spent by guests at local businesses, many of
which are located outside of traditional hotel districts. We have also collected and remitted
$4.5M ​million in taxes to the City of Portland on behalf of all of our hosts and guests since 2014.
We are proud Portland was the first city to pass regulations legalizing short-term rentals in 2014
and we have learned a lot since then. T
​ here is a better way to regulate this new activity, and we
look forward to working with city staff, our host community, and other advocates to get it right,
just like we have done in cities all over the world. We are committed to working together on fair,
progressive home sharing rules that benefit hosts and strengthen Portland neighborhoods. In
the meantime, we hope our new One Host, One Home product demonstrates our strong
commitment to working with city leaders to allow everyday people to continue sharing the
homes in which they live, while protecting the city’s long-term housing stock.

[ MEMO: A new product for Portland - One Host, One Home ]
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