The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

ACCESS to adequate housing is a human right. When The Bahamas joined the United Nations (UN) in September 1973, it pledged to uphold that right. The right to adequate housing is outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an international document adopted by the UN General Assembly, of which The Bahamas is a member. The declaration affirms, in article 25, that access to adequate housing plays a key role in guaranteeing the right to an adequate standard of living for all.

At present, there are well over 1000 active Airbnb listings in New Providence alone. The website does not provide a precise figure. These listings range from roughly $30 a night to hundreds and even thousands of dollars for a single night stay. These properties are primarily marketed to international tourists, which is a conscious, economically-driven decision being made daily on the part of both Bahamians and foreigners.

The problem with the proliferation of short term rentals via platforms like Airbnb is that it drives up surrounding rent prices, eliminates otherwise viable housing opportunities (experienced first-hand), and contributes to gentrification and displacement. The “Airbnb effect”, as it is dubbed in a 2020 Forbes article, refers to the tendency for rises in Airbnb listings to augment the value of an area to the detriment of local residents, who are evicted by virtue of both economic and cultural disenfranchisement.

Successive governments have cited the need for greater access to housing and homeownership. While new housing projects have been undertaken, they have been completed at great cost to the government and, arguably, to the environment. Stricter regulation of short term rentals would reduce the need to construct entirely new communities by providing property owners incentive to exercise a new kind of nationalism - one which prioritises morality and respect for human rights over profit.

The Department of Inland revenue is currently requiring that all short term vacation rental properties be registered by the end of April at no cost. The ultimate goal, the site states, is “to ensure that all owners within the short-term vacation rental market are maintaining a high standard of service and meeting all tax obligations.” Remarkably, there is no allusion to the fact that short term rentals are actively contributing to a housing shortage, in conjunction with climate change and the very insular nature of our geography. Aruba has already sounded the alarm.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that unregulated short term rentals are worsening economic inequalities in The Bahamas, while simultaneously exacerbating the housing crisis. In my own community in western New Providence, many of the properties being offered as short-term rentals are owned by foreigners and managed by foreigners. Many of the property owners do not even have to maintain full-time employment, because their profits are so lucrative. Every day, I see wealthy visitors, with no relationship to this land, enjoying their overpriced short term vacation rentals. Tourism has never been this blatantly neocolonial. Its profits have never been this pernicious - its economics never this disenfranchising for unhoused Bahamians.

RHYS KNOWLES

March 12, 2024