Airbnb is reportedly waging a political war on New York City Mayor Zahran Mamdani over New York City’s crackdown on short-term rentals, enlisting the Rev. Al Sharpton and other influential Black leaders in a bid to ease restrictions ahead of next month’s World Cup.
The home-sharing giant has hosted town halls and outreach events in Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and Jamaica, Queens, as part of an aggressive campaign to roll back the city’s strict short-term rental rules. The New York Times reported on Monday .
Airbnb frames its services as an economic lifeline for black homeowners who want to rent rooms during major tourism events, especially with more than a million visitors expected to arrive in the region for the World Cup.
The Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, which represents the city’s hotel workers, has long been seen as a major force preventing Airbnb from putting down roots in the Big Apple. City law prohibits short-term rentals of less than 30 days unless the host is located on the premises — effectively banning Airbnb — although a proposed City Council bill would relax regulations.
“We’ve always been supportive of the hotel workers union, but there are, in this particular case, unintended consequences, which are black homeowners,” Sharpton told the Times.
“Who are we protecting when hotels aren’t sold out and people can’t rent rooms in their homes in southeast Queens?” He added.
Sharpton personally asked Council President Julie Mennin to help facilitate the ability of Black homeowners to offer short-term rentals, according to the Times. A coalition of more than a dozen black religious leaders reportedly echoed the request in a May 1 letter to the Manhattan Democratic Party, which He has clashed with Mamdani several times since taking office. The newspaper indicated that the hotel workers union supported her attempt to obtain the position of speaker.
Since its $900,000 lobbying effort failed to bear fruit, Airbnb has continued a glamorous campaign — sponsoring events, giving away 1,000 free World Cup tickets to young soccer players in Queens and opening a new soccer stadium in the Bronx, according to the Times.
Nearly three years after the city enacted its short-term rental campaign, “rent is higher than ever and no additional housing has been added to the market,” Airbnb told The Post.
“The broad and diverse coalition of outer borough leaders leading the fight for modest changes to the law know that homeowners deserve every opportunity to generate additional income right now,” the company added, saying the reforms it supports “will do so without impacting New York’s renters.”
The campaign puts Airbnb on a collision course with democratic socialist Mamdani, who inherited the city’s short-term rental law but has so far rejected efforts to change it. The newspaper pointed out that Airbnb attacked him during the mayoral elections last year, even though the hotel workers union did not support him.
A spokesperson for the mayor told The Times that relaxing the rules would exacerbate the housing crisis and turn apartments into “investment opportunities for predatory actors looking to cash in.”
The battle revealed growing political tensions between the City Council, organized labor and some black homeowners frustrated with the inability to legally rent rooms or apartments for short stays.
The hotel workers union has long claimed that Airbnb takes housing off the market and contributes to rising rents and displacement in working-class neighborhoods. It is reportedly trying to counter Airbnb’s outreach to Black clergy by building alliances with pastors and housing advocates opposed to expanding short-term rentals.
The Rev. Robert Waterman, president of the African American Clergy and Elected Officials Organization, criticized Airbnb to the Times.
“Short-term rentals drive up housing costs and contribute to displacement in Black communities that have already suffered from generations of disinvestment,” he said.
Under one proposal that has yet to gain traction in the City Council, owners of single-family homes would be allowed to offer rentals without hosts present for fewer than 30 days. The maximum number of guests in the city will also be raised from two to four.
The newspaper pointed out that the draft law has few sponsors and will not enter into force until six months after its approval, making it too late to influence the World Cup.
However, the head of a prominent historically black church in Brooklyn expressed his support for reform.
“Black homeowners deserve the opportunity to generate additional income as our city faces an extraordinary affordability crisis and an exodus among our community. That’s why Black leaders are coming together to lead a grassroots fight to reform our short-term rental laws,” the Rev. Dr. Adolphus C. Lacey, senior pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, told the newspaper in a statement.
The Post requested comment from Airbnb, Mamdani, Menin, Sharpton and the hotel workers union.