Investigating Airbnb - Enquêter sur Airbnb

UPDATE Nov. 2, 2023 - Thanks to your support, this project was a success, producing over a dozen pieces of original investigative journalism from the Magdalen Islands to Montreal, and from Edmonton to Victoria, many published in both English and French (with our partners at Pivot Media). We invite you to search 'airbnb' or 'short-term rental' on our site, ricochet.media, and look through the archive.

Our journalists exposed several major networks of ghost hotels, went on a ride-along with Montreal's brand new squad of Airbnb inspectors and have driven policy change from Montreal, where Zachary Kamel has exposed vast networks of illegal operators and driven the creation of new enforcement measures, to British Columbia, where a new law directly addresses a loophole allowing for the operation of ghost hotels in Victoria that Jimmy Thomson reported on for us this summer.

We even coined the term for a popular new form of illegal rental arbitrage, the Montreal Shuffle. The name stuck, and our journalists were interviewed about our findings by other outlets across the country, including CBC's Day Six and The Big Story podcast. We've also made ourselves available to provide briefings on our findings to any municipal leader who wants one, and several have taken us up on the offer.

this is all thanks to your support.

But we're not done yet. We'll leave this crowdfunder open, and we'll use every dollar we receive here to pay award-winning investigative journalists to report on short-term rentals and their impact on the housing crisis.

Thank you, a million times, for your support. We've done so much with so little, thanks to you. Now, if you can, please help us do even more.

Thank you!

--- Everything below here is archived and may not be current ---

Short-term rentals and the housing crisis - Location à court terme et crise du logement

Canada’s housing crisis gets worse by the day, yet we’re no closer to solutions.

Politicians take the path of least resistance, while entire generations of young people face a future where they will never be able to own a home, or perhaps even afford rent.

In Canada’s largest cities, vacancy rates are at their lowest, rents are rising fast, and more and more people are scrambling to afford housing.

And Airbnb is in the middle of it all.

Version française ci-dessous.

A dream team of investigative journalists, with funding to dig into short-term rentals

We’ve assembled a team of award-winning investigative journalists and editors from across Canada to dig into short-term rentals, the politicians who have failed to regulate them and their role in the housing crisis.

On the west coast, former Capital Daily Victoria reporter Brishti Basu will be supported by National Magazine Award-winning investigative journalist Jimmy Thomson, who will act as a consulting editor on this project.

In Toronto Anupriya Dasgupta, a former Journalists for Human Rights’ Investigative Fellow at Ricochet, will be supported by Ricochet managing editor Andrea Houston and the team at The Hoser, a local non-profit outlet that will provide editorial assistance on this project.

Thanks to a partnership between Ricochet and award-winning Quebec non-profit outlet Pivot, we’ll be producing journalism in both official languages in Quebec. Zachary Kamel, a freelancer with bylines at the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Associated Press who first reported the identity of the Airbnb entrepreneur whose units were at the heart of the Old Montreal fire, will report in English while Sam Harper, an investigative journalist with Pivot, will report in French. They’ll be supported by Pivot managing editor Alexis Ross and Ricochet senior editor Ethan Cox.

Rounding out the team will be Ricochet Investigative Fellow Sophia de Guzman and Pivot videojournalist Oona Barrett who will produce video reports and graphics summarising the project’s findings for platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

These talented journalists will work together to tell the big picture story at the national level, and on their own to tell stories that are specific to their region. From big cities to small towns, it’s time to look under the hood of short-term rentals in Canada. But we need your help to fund this project and hold Airbnb — and the politicians who have enabled its excesses — accountable.

We need at least $28,000 to pay four journalists a living wage of $28 per hour to work half-time on this project over two months this summer, support the outside editors working with them, and pay for access to various databases and property records.

In other words, we need a thousand people to donate an average of $28. Can you donate $28 today to fund public interest investigative journalism from the heart of the housing crisis?

Here’s what you need to know

When Airbnb was first introduced to Canadians, it was sold as a solution for individuals to rent an extra room or a basement suite or even their whole home while they went on vacation. That is no longer the case, and it hasn’t been for a long while. Airbnb is now essentially a hotel operator.

There are about 16,566 illegal Airbnbs in Canada, according to new numbers from the Investigative Journalism Foundation. Who are the big players, operating Airbnb hotels with dozens or even hundreds of units? Who owns the buildings that provide these short-term rentals? Who are the worst offenders? Are municipal and provincial regulations sufficient? Are they being followed? If not, what are our politicians doing about it? What is holding them back from taking action? Many politicians are landlords — but are some of them also Airbnb operators?

Using data from the Airbnb platform and municipal property assessment registers (and with support from our friends at insideairbnb.com) — as well as interviews with people who have been impacted by the crisis, and experts who can help us put it all in context — we propose to answer these questions in order to shed light on the companies, people, and networks that are taking advantage of the current situation to the detriment of tenants.

Unregulated, and deadly

This spring a fatal fire in Montreal’s old port killed seven people, making it one of the deadliest fires in the city’s recent history. Zachary Kamel’s investigative reporting for Ricochet revealed that the building had been almost fully converted into an Airbnb hotel, and at least three of the units in the building that burned were run by one entrepreneur, Tariq Hasan, who listed another 20 units across the city. Further reporting would reveal serious fire safety issues, including windows nailed shut, blocked and missing fire escapes, insufficient smoke alarms and windowless rooms.

People died trapped in rooms and unable to escape, in part because they were staying in an illegal hotel that did not meet even the most basic standards of fire safety.

The owner of the Montreal building, Emile Benamor, rented dozens of his almost 100 apartments to Airbnb hosts across multiple buildings, most of them unregistered and illegal.

Ricochet’s reporting has also uncovered the reason why Benamor was so eager to welcome Airbnb entrepreneurs to his buildings: They didn’t object to massive rent hikes. Hikes that would be illegal under rent control legislation — unless the tenant consented.

Rents at these units went up by as much as 62 per cent in just a few years, and across his fleet of buildings these uncontested increases may have netted Benamor six figures year over year in new income — while also massively boosting the value of his buildings.

Over the past few years we’ve seen an increasing number of reports in media outlets across the country on issues with Airbnb, but what we’ve lacked is a cohesive investigation at the national level that puts all the pieces together.

This is that investigation, but only if you fund it. How much reporting we can do is contingent on your donations. So please, give generously!

Want to know more first? Read our full pitch on Ricochet's site.

Dévoiler le rôle d'Airbnb dans la crise du logement au Canada

La crise du logement au Québec et au Canada s’intensifie de jour en jour et nous sommes toujours loin d’une solution.

Les politicien·nes suivent la voie de la moindre résistance pendant que des générations entières de jeunes gens font face à un avenir où ils et elles ne pourront jamais posséder leur maison, où même arriver à payer leur loyer.

Dans les grandes villes du Canada – Montréal, Toronto et Vancouver – les taux d’inoccupation sont au plus bas, les loyers grimpent et de plus en plus de gens peinent à se payer un toit.

Et Airbnb est au centre de tout ça.

Cette campagne de sociofinancement a pour but d’engager des journalistes d’expérience pour enquêter sur Airbnb et d’autres plateformes d’hébergement temporaire, sur les politicien·nes qui ignorent le problème et sur l’impact qu’ils ont sur la hausse vertigineuse du coût des loyers. Grâce à un partenariat innovant entre Pivot et Ricochet Media, nous prévoyons embaucher des journalistes d’enquête d’expérience à Montréal (Sam Harper en français et Zachary Kamel en anglais), à Toronto (Anupriya Dasgupta) et à Vancouver/Victoria (Brishti Basu et Jimmy Thomson) pour un mandat de deux mois – à un salaire décent – afin de produire du journalisme d’investigation d’impact dans les deux langues.

Des grandes villes aux villages, il est temps de regarder sous le capot de l’hébergement temporaire au Québec et au Canada. Mais nous avons besoin de votre aide pour financer ce projet pour rendre redevables Airbnb et les politicien·nes qui ont permis ses excès.

Voici ce que vous devez savoir

Il y a autour de 16 566 Airbnb illégaux au Canada, selon les derniers chiffres de l’IJF (Fondation du journalisme d’investigation). Qui sont, parmi eux, les gros joueurs qui opèrent des hôtels Airbnb ayant des douzaines, voire des centaines d’unités?

Lorsqu’Airbnb a été introduit au pays, la plateforme était présentée comme une solution permettant à des individus de louer une chambre libre ou un logement au sous-sol. Ce n’est plus le cas, et depuis longtemps. Airbnb est essentiellement un opérateur hôtelier.

Qui sont ces propriétaires? À qui appartiennent les bâtiments qui fournissent ces locations à court terme? Le marché locatif à court terme est-il concentré dans les mains d’un petit nombre d’« hôtes »? Qui sont les pires délinquants? Comment font-ils pour déjouer la réglementation? Est-ce que la réglementation provinciale et municipale est adéquate? Est-elle respectée? Sinon, que font les politicien·nes pour endiguer le problème? Qu’est-ce qui les empêche de passer à l’action? Beaucoup d’élu·es sont propriétaires de logements, mais certains sont-ils également des opérateur·trices d’Airbnb?

À l’aide des données de la plateforme Airbnb et des registres d’évaluation foncière des villes concernées, nous proposons de répondre à ces questions afin de mettre en lumière les entreprises, personnes et réseaux qui profitent de la situation actuelle au détriment des locataires.

Non réglementé, et mortel

Ce printemps, un incendie mortel dans le Vieux-Port de Montréal a tué sept personnes, ce qui en fait l’un des incendies les plus meurtriers de l’histoire récente de la ville.

L’enquête journalistique de Ricochet (menée par Zachary Kamel, qui fera partie de ce projet) a révélé que le bâtiment avait été presque totalement converti en hôtel Airbnb et qu’au moins trois des unités du bâtiment qui a brûlé étaient opérées par un entrepreneur, Tariq Hasan, qui affichait une vingtaine d’unités supplémentaires à travers la ville. Des reportages subséquents ont révélé de graves problèmes de sécurité incendie, notamment des fenêtres clouées et impossibles à ouvrir, des issues de secours bloquées ou manquantes, des avertisseurs de fumées insuffisants et des pièces sans fenêtre.

Des gens sont morts, pris au piège dans des chambres et incapables de s’échapper, parce qu’ils demeuraient dans un hôtel illégal qui ne respectait pas les normes minimales de sécurité incendie.

Le propriétaire de cet immeuble montréalais, Emile Benamor, louait des dizaines d’appartements à des hôtes d’Airbnb dans plusieurs édifices, la plupart non enregistrés et illégaux.

Le reportage de Ricochet a également révélé la raison pour laquelle Benamor était si pressé d’accueillir des hôtes Airbnb dans ses appartements : ils ne s’opposaient pas aux hausses massives de loyer. Des hausses qui ne seraient pas permises à moins que le locataire n’y consente.

Le loyer dans ces logements a grimpé de 62 % en quelques années à peine. Sur l’ensemble du parc locatif de Benamor, ces hausses non contestées lui auront possiblement rapporté un revenu supplémentaire dans les six chiffres – tout en augmentant considérablement la valeur de ses immeubles.

Au cours des dernières années, nous avons vu un nombre croissant de reportages dans des médias à travers le pays sur le sujet d’Airbnb, mais ce qui nous manque, c’est une enquête coordonnée au niveau national qui rassemble toutes les pièces.

Voici cette enquête – mais elle pourra se concrétiser seulement si vous nous aidez à la financer. La portée de l’enquête que nous pouvons faire dépend de vos dons. Alors, s’il vous plaît, donnez généreusement.