[bane]

When my family was homeless, we would have killed to have had the security of an AirBnB available back then. Instead we stayed in a number of different places, many of which were downright dangerous.

After we clawed our way out of poverty, my parents were unable to afford to take our family anywhere for over a decade. The first family vacation we ever took we slept in the car and brought all of our own food. Poor people need to take a break also and this terrible vacation was blessed luxury from multiple jobs, daily danger and sickness, and grinding poverty.

My extended family is also spread all over thousands of miles as jobs were to be had. A simple visit to meet grandparents, or to meet cousins or other family is not a middle class problem. Poor people have families and loved ones as well.

I'm going to say this as respectfully as I can -- you don't know what it means to be poor with unstable housing, and you should think more about speaking for poor people, what you perceive to be their needs, and should stop scolding other people for not being poor.

[typon]

Thanks for assuming my background. Rest assured I grew up in poverty that few have experienced, even in the third world country where I grew up.

Moreover, i don't really care about your lived experience and I don't think you should care about mine either - I think in these types of discussions its better to take a statistical approach and see the effect of Airbnb at a societal scale - its the only way to make just decisions that aren't short sighted.