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DESCRIPTION:SF Housing Crisis: We Need Housing, Not Hotels\nWe Need City Regulations to 
 Bring AirBnB Under Control\nRally Monday, May 18, 1 PM, City Hall Steps\nSF 
 Supes Hearing, 1:30 PM, City Hall, Rm 263\n\n A new study shows over 20% of 
 SF's vacant rental units have been removed from the market by AirBnB.  This 
 does not include single-room rentals. (See below.)  San Francisco's current 
 regulation of AirBnB and other "hosting platforms" is completely 
 ineffective and allows AirBnB to list illegal units and provides no penalty 
 for doing so.  Come demand amendments for enforcement, transparency, 
 accountability. \n\nDemand:\n\n•	Stop our neighborhoods from becoming 
 hotels and protect existing housing by limiting short term rentals to 60 
 days!\n\n•	Hold Airbnb accountable and charge them fines for allowing 
 illegal listings!\n\n•	Give neighbors whose lives are hurt by Airbnb the 
 right to go to court to enforce city laws!\n\n\nSF Examiner, May 14, 
 2015\n\nAirBnB Rentals Cut Deep Into SF Housing Stock, Report Says\non-line 
 version:  http://tinyurl.com/pye4jrk\n\nSan Francisco is once again 
 debating how best to regulate short-term rental websites like Airbnb, after 
 a law legalizing the practice went into effect less than four months ago. 
 \n\nCity planners have since said the law is unenforceable and needs to 
 change, a position supported by Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of 
 Supervisors.\n\nBut just how to strengthen the law remains a point of 
 contention, as does the question of what impact short-term rentals are 
 having on San Francisco’s housing stock.\n\nToday, a report will be 
 released by Budget Analyst Harvey Rose that provides new analysis of the 
 impact of short-term rentals on The City, drawing comparisons between 
 longer-term hosts and evictions and estimating that in some neighborhoods 
 Airbnb units could comprise as much as 40 percent of potential 
 rentals.\n\nRequested by Supervisor David Campos, the report comes just 
 four days before the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development 
 Committee is expected vote on how to amend the short-term rental 
 regulations that took effect Feb. 1. \n\nBetween 925 and 1,960 units 
 citywide have been removed from the housing market by hosts renting out 
 entire units on Airbnb for more than 58 days, the report estimates. While 
 this total comprises a small fraction of San Francisco’s 244,012 rental 
 units, it does represent up to 23.2 percent of the total citywide vacant 
 units, which are estimated at 8,438, the report says. \n\nAirbnb is not the 
 only short-term rental website with listings in San Francisco — VRBO, for 
 example, is the second-most popular — but the report only analyzed Airbnb 
 because data for other companies was unavailable. The report notes that 
 “rentals for private and shared rooms would reduce the available rental 
 stock even further.” \n\nThe data was not provided by Airbnb, but rather 
 compiled through online research. \nThe impact in San Francisco varies by 
 neighborhood, with the greatest impacts in the Mission, 
 Haight-Ashbury/Western Addition, Castro-Eureka Valley and Potrero 
 Hill-South Beach. \n\nIn the Haight, for example, nearly 32 percent of the 
 vacant rental housing units were listed on Airbnb, some 122 total. In the 
 Mission, 29 percent of potential rentals, or 199, were listed on the 
 website. Another estimate says the Mission percentage could be as high as 
 40 percent and as high as 43 percent in the Haight. \n\n“Airbnb has made 
 a lot of claims that they are not impacting our housing stock. This 
 demonstrates that they clearly are,” Campos said during an interview with 
 The San Francisco Examiner. “And that in some neighborhoods like the 
 Mission the impact is so significant that it’s definitely pushing people 
 out.” \n\nThe report draws a comparison between the number of evictions 
 in neighborhoods with the most hosts, though notes there is no way to draw 
 a direct connection. In the Mission, for example, there were 315 hosts last 
 year and 323 evictions. \n\n“There seems to be a connection,” Campos 
 said. “We won’t know for sure until we actually get Airbnb to give us 
 the information.” \n\nThe report draws a distinction between commercial 
 hosts, those booked in excess of 58 days, and casual hosts, and bases its 
 analysis on 6,113 Airbnb listings identified in December, of which nearly 
 4,200 were casual hosts. The impact on the housing stock is based on 
 commercial hosts, which the report defines as those not supplementing 
 living expenses but treating short-term rentals as a steady source of 
 income. \n\nThose debating the regulations talk about striking the right 
 balance, such as with the cap on the number of allowable stays per year. 
 Current law states there can only be 90 days for unhosted stays but 
 unlimited days when a host is present. That is being proposed to change to 
 120 days for all types of stays by the Planning Commission. Campos is 
 pushing for a 60-day cap. A proposed short-term rental measure for the 
 November ballot proposes a 75-day cap. \n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/05/15/18772327.php
SUMMARY:We Need City Regulations to Bring AirBnB Under Control
LOCATION:1:00 PM: SF City Hall Steps\n1:30 PM: SF City Hall, Rm 263
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/05/15/18772327.php
DTSTART:20150518T200000Z
DTEND:20150518T223000Z
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