San Francisco Issues $1.1 Million in Fines to Hosts Renting on Sites like Airbnb

In the article "San Francisco Issues $1.1 Million in Fines to Hosts Renting On Sites Like Airbnb," American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) consultant Dale Carlson complains that most residents are exploiting the home sharing market while San Francisco is facing the housing crisis. Since the middle class like Dr. Lisa Cohn cannot afford pricey housing rates in San Francisco, they try to earn extra income by listing their properties on home sharing sites, for instance Airbnb. However, the NBC Bay Area's Investigative Unit emphasizes that over 70 percent of the listings on Airbnb are evading the law by not registering under the short-term rental regulations and also states that San Francisco has fined over $1 million to hosts since 2015 and is going to implement a new law — which Airbnb took legal action against — that would hit illegal home sharing companies with heavy fines and penalties. AHLA reports that 717 home owners listed multiple properties on Airbnb and asserts that many residential units have become full-time tourist accommodations. On the other hand, Airbnb spokesperson Christopher Nulty denies that AHLA findings are inaccurate, biased, and in favour of hotel industry to protect their market share since Airbnb has complied with their one host one home policy.

By focusing on most residential units having become full-time lodgings for tourists, AHLA consultant Dale Carlson overlooks the deeper problem of the San Francisco housing crisis and should consider the main reasons of the housing crisis, which are high population density, high home price, and low housing supply which has led its residents like Dr. Lisa Cohn to rent out their homes for short-term in order to struggle in the pricey city. San Francisco with the approximate area of 47 square miles has already crowded with the population of 874,288 as of January 2017 (Brinklow, 2017), giving the index of 18601.80 people per square mile, and has turned into the second densest city in the US, after New York. Since the 1960s, buildings over 40 feet tall have not been allowed in San Francisco and surrounding bay area according to the zoning regulation (Smith, 1999) which has caused dramatic increase in housing prices and significant decrease in housing supply. Since rental housing supply could not catch up with the demand, rental vacancy rates have fallen enormously since 2010, and consequently created soaring rental prices as well as economic hardship for low-income and middle-class individuals and families (Rice, Dohler, & Mazzara, 2016). As a result, some working people with full-time jobs are forced to live in cars (Lee, 2015) and some have to squeeze in overcrowded housing; adding a second housing unit into a single-family home (Rice, Dohler, & Mazzara, 2016). In addition, some employees even quit their