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Posted on February 25, 2017 at 10:37 AM
By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist
By Josh Meltzer
In the coming-of-age movie “Garden State,” Zach Braff’s character Andrew Largeman bemoans the disorienting feeling of lacking a home:
“You’ll see one day when you move out…You feel like you can never get it back. It’s like you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like this rite of passage…You won’t ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself.”
That feeling of home, of belonging, is at the heart of Airbnb’s mission. We seek to build a world in which people can belong anywhere — in over 34,000 big cities and small towns in 192 countries worldwide.
It is a sentiment rooted in the warm embrace of our host community — including 6,100 hosts right here in New Jersey who welcomed nearly 260,000 guests in 2016, double the number from 2015. These guests are coming from across the country and around the world, with 24 percent from outside North America.
The vast majority of Garden State hosts are middle class New Jerseyans who share their homes occasionally to pay for their mortgage, medicine, and student loans, or save money for retirement or a rainy day. In fact, last year, the typical host shared their home for fewer than 4 days a month, bringing in $6,200 to help make ends meet.
Rent, baby, rent!
Post is still up and not one visit from anyone at VH. Why? Because they don’t have the balls to challenge me. It’s my property and i’ll do as i see fit. Village ordinance….Yea right.
5:57 Keep calm and carry on. They will be coming to give you a summons soon. Arrogant SOB
Ha! I love it 6:15…And how “soon” would that be? My lawyer and I have been waiting patiently for weeks and to no avail not one visit from the powers that be. Why is that? I suppose their planning some sort of strategy/attack with the DOD and whoever has the one bullet down at VH. Well, I’m still here waiting and as arrogant as ever knowing full well that the only visitors i’m going to have are the vetted professionals that want to rent my home.
6:15 is a commie pinko. TERRIBLE!
I’m moving out and renting all of my rooms individually on airbnb
If it goes well, I’ll start buying up houses all over Ridgewood and rent them out piecemeal as well.
I might even start a halfway house of sorts for crack moms from Patterson or perhaps a “safe house airbnb” for “undocumented citizens”.