CommentsVOICES-Hotel industry groups are misrepresenting the Airbnb community to protect profits. As a 56 year-old Production Designer who has called East Los Angeles home for the past 13 years, I have increasingly experienced ageism and fewer job opportunities and have turned to home-sharing to help pay my bills.
Sadly, the show that I work on went on an indefinite hiatus and without the extra income I get from sharing my home, I would be in dire straits, unable to pay my bills. Home-sharing has supported me during this trying time, so when I see the hotel lobby continue to spend money to change regulations and spread misleading information about hosts like myself, I take it personally.
Contrary to what some hotel-backed groups might have you believe, I am a very responsible community member who enjoys hosting visitors from around the world. My area has zero quality hotels for visitors who come to USC’s Keck School of Medicine, Downtown LA or as tourists. These guests support small local businesses and restaurants and bring tourism dollars to neighborhoods that are not served by hotels or big chains.
The hotel industry has waged a campaign of misinformation against the home-sharing community in Los Angeles in an effort to protect their profits. Although these hotel-backed groups express concern about the affordable housing crisis in LA, they do nothing for that situation and instead stand by, reaping hundreds of millions in tax subsidies for their development projects. The city has a budget deficit; money raised by taxing Airbnb could be redirected to help fund city services and the construction of new homes for families.
And while claiming to be concerned about the jobs of hotel workers, the hotel industry was the strongest opponent to efforts to raise the minimum wage for LA hotel workers. So there is a double standard here. It’s all about benefitting the hotels and no one else. As the city considers short-term rental rules, I urge our elected officials to take all of this into consideration and understand the changing economic environment. If we look beyond the misleading hotel industry claims, and work to create regulations that preserve home-sharing’s economic benefits for hosts like myself and the City of Los Angeles, there is room for all to thrive.
While we contemplate the concerns about affordable housing and party houses, we should not enact regulations that negatively impact responsible hosts. If we want to tackle these issues, city leaders and groups backed by the hotel industry should focus on policies allowing construction of more affordable housing, not on hurting Angelenos who have come to rely on home-sharing.
Everyday Angelenos trying to make ends meet should not suffer because the hotel industry wants to continue protecting their profits by monopolizing LA’s hospitality sector.
(Kelly Van Patter lives in East LA and is an Airbnb host.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
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