ukraine

Airbnb nonprofit teams up with Bay Area's Nova Ukraine to help house Ukrainian refugees

One of the biggest challenges for refugees is finding affordable housing; Nova Ukraine and Airbnb.org work together

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Airbnb.org teams up with nonprofit to help house Ukrainian refugees

One of the biggest challenges for Ukrainian refugees is finding affordable housing, and Nova Ukraine is teaming up with Airbnb's nonprofit, Airbnb.org, to help out.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (KGO) -- As millions of Ukrainians flee their country, the Bay Area is bracing to welcome a portion of the 100,000 refugees set to land in the U.S.

"We are on the edge of our seats just like everyone else, knowing that and anticipating that we could see large numbers of folks," said Robin Mencher, Executive Director, Jewish Family & Community Services.

The East Bay-based refugee resettlement agency is readying itself and counting on the community to stop up again.

"We saw it really kick into gear this last August with the Afghan evacuation," said Mencher, noting the agency's helped settle more than 500 Afghans with more than 200 set to arrive in the coming months.

TAKE ACTION: Local and national support for people in Ukraine

The Bay Area community has been helping with financial donations and more.

"Everything from diapers to Chromebooks to dishes and everything in between," said Mencher, "to providing necessary services like transportation or language translation."

One of the biggest challenges is finding affordable housing for newcomers and Nova Ukraine is teaming up with Airbnb.org to help out.

"So many ordinary people are reaching out to Nova Ukraine offering their home, so this is a great systematic way to create a database of people who are in a position to offer help," Yulia Zimmermann, with Nova Ukraine said, noting you don't have to be an Airbnb host to offer up space. You can simply go to Airbnb.org - the company's charitable website - and sign up to open up your home.

Nonprofits are gearing up to help Ukrainian refugees entering the Bay Area amid the war between Ukraine and Russia.

"We actually saw that over 6,000 people here in the U.S. have signed up in the past few weeks to share their home with refugees fleeing Ukraine whenever they resettle here in the U.S.," said Liz Fusco, Communications Lead North America, Airbnb.

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Airbnb.org will also be providing vouchers to partners like Nova Ukraine as part of its commit to help resettle 100,000 Ukrainian refugees worldwide.

"These nonprofits can also just book regular supplies on the Airbnb platform as well - whatever best meets their needs we will cover the cost of that."

If you'd like to donate to the voucher program, you can do that as well at Airbnb.org.

"Airbnb and other short term rental opportunities are really critical because when the volume of folks is really high, it's almost impossible to get people their first night from the airport into their home - their new apartment rental makes all the difference," said Mencher.