Ultimately the issue pits the needs of low- and middle-income residents in the majority black city against the financial interest of mostly white investors. “We need to be placing the housing needs of residents in front of the property values of speculators,” she said.ĭeDecker acknowledged that gentrification and the city’s depleted affordable housing stock also contribute, but called the short-term rentals “jet fuel on the fire”. The low housing stock coupled with investor demand has helped send home prices and rents soaring, and exacerbated a housing crisis that’s displacing longtime New Orleanians, said housing advocate Breonne DeDecker, the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative’s program manager. Of that figure, 85% are owned by investors, some of whom live as far away as San Francisco or New York City. The number of Airbnbs citywide spiked from 1,905 to 6,508 between 2015 and December 2018, according to the watchdog website Inside Airbnb. Short-term rentals are so concentrated in Bywater, Marigny and other neighborhoods around the French Quarter that some residents and longtime homeowners are finding investors have effectively converted their blocks into hotels. There are loud parties, overflowing garbage cans and countless other issues “grating” on remaining residents, he added. Suddenly, Treme is alive with groups of drunk, mostly white college-aged kids, Durham said. Each Thursday, the tourists return, filling hundreds of units. For about half of each week, the number of tourists drops and many blocks are “like a ghost town”, Durham said. Resulting rent rises and property taxes stemming from that have forced out many black families and residents, said Durham, a musician who has lived there since 2006. In recent years, short-term rentals with companies such as Airbnb proliferated and now operate on about 45% of the Historic Faubourg Treme District’s parcels.
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