San Francisco, CA — San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed announced a $25 million donation from Airbnb Co-Founder and Chairman of Airbnb.org Joe Gebbia to benefit Rising Up- Larkin Street Youth Services and All Home. The donation will support the organizations’ ongoing efforts to tackle homelessness and support families and individuals facing economic hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"As we recover from this pandemic, we have an opportunity to lift thousands of people out of homelessness and change lives, but the City can’t do this alone,” said Mayor London Breed. “We need the partnership of organizations like Larkin Street Youth and All Home, as well as the support of our philanthropic community. I want to thank Joe Gebbia for his incredibly generous support for these organizations that are working with us day in and day out to support some of our most vulnerable residents.”

"The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the needs of our communities and it's incumbent on all of us to do our part to help," said Joe Gebbia, Airbnb Co-Founder and Chairman of Airbnb.org. “I am proud to support the work Rising Up-Larkin Street Youth Services and All Home are doing to improve the lives of so many during these difficult times." 

The Rising Up campaign is a public-private partnership launched by Mayor London Breed with the goal of raising $35 million to reduce youth homelessness in San Francisco by 50% by 2023. Its approach prevents and addresses youth homelessness through a coordinated response system that has continued to yield results even through the economic and systemic challenges that the non-profit community is facing during the pandemic. To date the organization has raised $17 million in private and public donations. Gebbia’s donation will help the organization get closer to its $35 million funding goal and directly support Rising Up’s partnership with Larkin Street Youth Services to cover rent subsidies, education and employment services, and staffing to help young people experiencing homelessness develop self-sufficiency.

“This generous gift of $12.5M for Rising Up could not have come at a better time. Now more than ever it is important to get more youth off the streets and into housing,” said Larkin Street Youth Services Executive Director and Rising Up Co-Chair Sherilyn Adams. “This funding helps close the resource gap needed to achieve our ambitious goal of reducing youth homelessness by 50% by 2023. Currently, Rising Up has housed over 180 young people and helped another 60 avoid homelessness. This gift will provide rapid rehousing to an additional 180 young people and problem solving to prevent an additional 130 youth from ever experiencing homelessness.”

Gebbia’s donation will also amplify All Home’s crucial work at a time when the San Francisco community needs it most. As rent bills pile up, All Home will launch a first of its kind regional homelessness prevention system to reduce the number of people becoming unsheltered in the Bay Area. Before the pandemic, in parts of the Bay Area, people were becoming homeless at a faster rate than cities were able to assist them to find affordable housing. All Home emphasizes a regional approach to meet the housing and homelessness needs of individual jurisdictions while building coalition-supported momentum to challenge the long-standing systems that perpetuate homelessness and poverty. To ensure COVID-19 and lost wages do not result in a surge of homelesness, all nine San Francisco Bay Area counties have to work together on housing production and preservation, homelessness prevention, policy and advocacy, and sustainable long-term change that challenges us to solve, not just manage, poverty, homelessness, and housing affordability.

“Working to address homelessness and housing insecurity in the Bay Area has never been more critical. The pandemic has shined a bright light on the disparities that our most vulnerable neighbors face and the urgency needed to scale solutions that work to address this crisis,” said Tomiquia Moss, Founder and Chief Executive of All Home. “The generous support of Joe Gebbia makes it possible for All Home to deepen our impact in communities throughout the Bay Area. It takes all of us, every sector, to tackle this problem and I am so grateful to leaders like Joe for leaning in to be a part of the solution.”

Gebbia’s gift also comes on the heels of the recent launch of Airbnb.org, a new non-profit that enables hosts on Airbnb to house people in times of crisis. To date, the Airbnb.org community has helped over 75,000 people in need find temporary housing. Gebbia has long-established a philanthropic tenure rooted in servicing communities on both a local and global level. He is also among the youngest members to join the Giving Pledge, created by Bill and Melinda Gates with Warren Buffet that signifies a commitment from wealthy individuals to give more than half of their wealth towards philanthropy.

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