The San Francisco Housing Authority is offering people $5,000 Airbnb gift cards to leave public housing and squat in private homes instead.

The San Francisco Housing Authority wants to evict dozens of people squatting in public housing planned for demolition. But it’s almost impossible to do that in San Francisco, and squatters get free legal representation to drag this through the courts. So the Housing Authority is offering people $5,000 Airbnb gift cards to leave. Squatters complain that the amounts aren’t big enough, and they want more.

Redevelopment has already been in process for nine years. There are about 40 groups of squatters, some of whom say they’ve been paying rent (off the books) to a city employee. Residents can’t be evicted if:

• They’ve lived in the unit for over a year, or
  
• They paid rent to “either the landlord or the landlord’s agent”

If they lived without paying rent they can stay and keep doing that! If a city employee was running a scam, and gets considered an ‘agent’ of the city, they get to keep doing that (but presumably wouldn’t have to pay a city employee who may have been pocketing the money).

According to a ‘housing rights’ advocate, the city needs to offer even bigger incentives:

I would expect there to be a more wholesale strategy meant to mutually revolve the situation. So folks losing their housing come to a soft landing while you’re able to move forward with the work of improving the housing stock for the future Potrero residents…[The housing authority] should understand that they have to bring something to the table more meaningful than a $5,000 Airbnb gift card.

Let’s leave aside the absurdity and outrage for a moment, and make two points.

• This just shifts who bears the cost of the problem. People with a demonstrated propensity for squatting are just going to squat somewhere else – in private Airbnbs instead of public housing. I’m not sure that is.. better? San Francisco will pay $5,000 per squatter to make it someone else’s problem.

• Incentivizes squatting. They’re is offering a $5,000 reward for squatting. Do you think that’s going to mean more or less squatting?

Meanwhile, I’ve long been a critic of Airbnb ‘cleaning fees’ where guests are still expected to do all of the chores themselves. Maybe in San Francisco those fees should be higher?