Roughly 100 Jasperites displaced by wildfires will have a place to live for the next few months, thanks to support from Airbnb’s non-profit arm.
“We reached out to the municipality of Jasper back in July and offered our assistance to house evacuees and people who’d lost their homes,” said Christoph Gorder, executive director of Airbnb.org. He said there are currently 103 displaced Jasperites staying with Airbnb hosts, including 21 children and 35 pets.
“The sad reality for communities that suffer disasters like this is it really takes years for them to get back up on their feet, and it takes a huge human toll.”
Gorder said providing temporary housing doesn’t just benefit those in need. He recalled that one of the residents being temporarily housed is a nurse in a nearby hospital who lost her home and would not have been able to continue working. Her Airbnb hosts are a husband and wife who are reduced to a single income after the wildfires ravaged the area.
Gorder said paying the hosts to take in this nurse, even temporarily, solves two problems with one solution, and is just one example of how an act of kindness can have unexpected benefits for an entire community.
“It has a much bigger effect than just saying, ‘Oh, we just housed one person,’ ” Gorder said. “I think there’s a real ripple effect to being able to house one person and also inject some income into the community when there’s no tourism and many people have lost their jobs.”
Gorder said he is not certain how long they will need to provide housing for displaced residents, but hopes it will offer a temporary solution while the city works to rebuild.
In July and August, a series of wildfires tore through Jasper, destroying 30 per cent of the city’s structures and causing $283 million in property damage. When residents were allowed to return to the area on Aug. 16, hundreds of them learned they had no home to return to.