This is the AirBNB For Refugees and Victims of Domestic Violence

By the present day, there is a good chance you all know about or have heard of AirBNB. But in case you haven’t, allow me to give you a brief introduction about who they are and what they do.

AirBNB is an online marketplace that allows people to list, find and search for vacation home rentals. So instead of getting a hotel like you would have always done in the past, you can now rent a room, apartment or whole house wherever you are staying. There are over a million listings in over 30,000 cities in almost 200 countries. While the company is private and thus does not release their finances, they have recently secured hundreds of millions of dollars at a massive valuation of $30 Billion.

So as you can tell, this business model has been extremely successful for AirBNB. But now, there is a man who is looking to adopt a similar model, but with a beautiful and thoughtful twist. The man is a recent Harvard graduate named Amr Arafa.

Currently, Arafa is in the process of building a website called EmergencyBNB.com. His goal for this site is to help bring together people with empty rooms and connect them with both refugees and domestic violence victims who need a place to stay for a few days. The creator believes that it is time for the sharing economy to be considered as a means to help others in a great way, and not just be solely an economic opportunity.

And of all the people he could help, he selected two that possibly need it most. With all the conflicts going on around the world leaving dozens and dozens of dangerous locations, there might possibly be more refugees coming to more developed nations than ever before. There are millions of refugees around the world right now who could greatly benefit from the service that Arafa is trying to provide.

Also, domestic violence victims are often in a tough situation too as it is notoriously hard to leave an abusive relationship with no help. Hundreds of thousands of men and women are sticking it out in harmful relationships, only because they don’t have anywhere else to go, and this service will definitely help them out as well.

So why did he decide to create this? Well, Arafa himself only recently came to the USA in 2005. And in his time here, he too has experienced many of the same problems that immigrants and refugees face.  And once he received his green card, he wanted to make it his life’s mission to help others and assist them to gain a sense of stability.

While the site is not fully operational yet, he has offered up his own studio apartment on AirBNB and has been renting it out (for free) to people who can prove they are a refugee or D.V victim. He has been getting great reviews and thanks from those he helps and he hopes they (along with everyone else) can pay it forward.