Will Burns is a busy man. The mid-Atlantic public policy director for Airbnb covers a region that in reality expands far beyond what it might imply. In addition to the greater Washington, D.C. area, Burns oversees the company's policy efforts up and down the Eastern seaboard, and reaches as far as Boston and Chicago. That's a lot of bills and regulation to keep up with.
DC Inno talked with Burns on a recent episode of The Beat podcast about some of the legislative and community priorities for the homesharing giant, as well as a few other topics related to homesharing and Airbnb.
One of the main topics of discussion was the recently proposed homesharing regulation bill introduced in D.C. by Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5).
Burns says that while Airbnb supports commonsense regulations, as well as paying taxes, that ultimately "the bill misses the mark." Particularly, Airbnb disputes the claim in the legislation that homesharing is driving up the price of housing in the District. No data shows Airbnb is responsible for the affordable housing crisis, Burns says.
In fact, according to Burns, only 498 units in D.C. were rented for more than 180 days on Airbnb last year—an indicator that those units are being used as commercial properties rather than simply by residents sharing their primary residence. This relatively small number, out of 303,000 total units of housing in the District, is evidence, according to Burns, that there is not a widespread problem with commercial hosts driving up affordable housing prices.
"I think Councilmember McDuffie has a track record of working on affordable housing issues and making sure that folks who have lived in the District for a long time have the ability to continue to do so," says Burns. "We see ourselves as part of that solution. Some of our fastest-growing group of hosts across the country are women over 60 who are using Airbnb revenue to stay in their homes and supplement their fixed incomes. We see short-term rentals as part of a solution to affordable housing by making the city more affordable for long-time residents, and to support a lot of small businesses in places like Ward 5, or east of the river get more revenue."
These hosts provide a valuable voice for Airbnb when it comes to advocacy. Burns credits the testimony of a number of hosts in Arlington with helping soften homesharing regulation he says was originally very restrictive. "Our best ambassadors are the hosts who live in the community, who are paying taxes, who are engaged in the community. And when they show up, that has a huge impact on policymakers."
Another hot-button issue recently for Airbnb has been instances of guests claiming they were discriminated against by hosts. Burns says he was heartened by Airbnb's quick and multifaceted response.
"I'm African American, I worked for the Chicago Urban League before I was an elected official, so when the 'Airbnb While Black,' issue happened, I was really excited the company took it so seriously."
Some of these actions included a change in terms of service, monitoring hosts and rejection rates for patterns and trends of potential discrimination, a special unit in customer service to handle discrimination claims, and encouraging hosts to us the "Instant Book" feature rather than needing to manually approve each guest.
While Airbnb is a large national company, Burns also acknowledged that they play a role in supporting the local innovation scene. "Cities can't afford to look like they are shutting the door on innovation. By making it difficult for companies like Airbnb to operate, you're sending a signal to entrepreneurs that 'hey, you know, we don't want new ideas, we don't want new energy,'" he says. "So when the next Facebook, or the next Uber pops up, that's why that person might move to San Francisco, or Boston or somewhere else, because they don't feel like this place supports innovation."
Listen to the whole episode and be sure to subscribe to The Beat Podcast to get new episodes as they are released.
