October 7, 2019

Mayor The Honorable Herb Wesson The Honorable Marqueece Harris-Dawson City Hall 200 North Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012

Our coalition of community members, housing rights activists, tenant rights advocates, workers, and business owners urge you to deny Airbnb’s request to delay enforcement of the Home-Sharing Ordinance (HSO) as adopted by the City in December 2018.

Airbnb’s request is disingenuous and unsurprising. After being given a generous 11-month grace period for enforcement, the company has come to ask for yet another 11th hour demand to delay enforcement. This is particularly reprehensible given the timing and intent: In the midst of an unprecedented housing and homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, Airbnb seeks to bolster its profits on the backs of Angelenos by taking a page right out if its playbook, having used this delay tactic to manipulate markets in multiple cities including New York, Miami, and Boston. Four years ago, LAANE released a report warning that Airbnb was hurting Angelenos by making it harder to find an affordable place to live. At that time, there were 16,000 Airbnb units in Los Angeles. That number has skyrocketed to nearly 45,000 today, and there are more tents on the streets than ever. Airbnb’s pocketbooks clearly benefit from more delay, but it is the City’s moral imperative to say no.

The tech behemoth has routinely engaged in confusing misinformation campaigns, and now Airbnb incredulously claims that it needs more time to develop an API system. Yet, such systems are commonly used for web-based commerce, and Airbnb advertises the use of an API system on its very own website and encourages others to connect to it (https://www.airbnb.com/partner). Clearly, Airbnb can build an API system whenever it chooses too. Regardless, City Planning also allows any platform, including Airbnb, to hand over manual spreadsheets instead of using the API method. There is simply no technical reason why enforcement cannot begin as scheduled on November 1, and any claim otherwise is false and designed to delay justice.

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In Airbnb’s correspondence to Planning Director Vince Bertoni dated September 27, 2019, they again attempt to mislead city officials by conflating the API system with a platform agreement. Airbnb argues that it cannot comply with the law because it only received a draft template agreement 10 weeks ago. From the start, City Planning has made it very clear that, in addition to the manual spreadsheet method and API, a platform agreement is only one of several ways to comply with the HSO. The City cannot afford to fall prey to Airbnb’s fabrications and claims of victimhood.

The City has bent over backwards to accommodate so many of Airbnb’s requests to delay. It is time to enforce the law, stop the bleeding of our housing stock, and focus on our highest priority as a community – to preserve safe, affordable housing for Angelenos.

Sincerely,

James Elmendorf Kurt Petersen Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy Unite Here Local 11

Lynn Mohrfeld William “Chip” Rogers Hotel & Lodging Association American Hotel & Lodging Association

Heather Rozman Judith Goldman Hotel Association of Los Angeles Keep Neighborhoods First

Larry Gross Chanchanit Martorell Coalition for Economic Survival Thai Community Development Center

Becky Dennison Cynthia Strathmann Venice Community Housing Strategic Actions for a Just Economy

Bill Pryzlucki Luis Cabrales People Organized for Westside Renewal Inquilinos Unidos

Nancy Halpern Ibrahim Damien Goodmon Esperanza Community Housing Crenshaw Subway Coalition

Alexandra Suh Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance

CC: Matt Szabo William Chun Vince Bertoni Tricia Keane Arthi Varma Matthew Glesne Yeghig Keshishian

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