For the fun of it, to see what might happen and if we could actually help out, we signed-up 7 weeks ago for the Afghan refugee and Airbnb.org hosting program.
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The result? No one contacted us. No msg. No call. No email. Nada. Nothing. After a few weeks, we called Air to see if we are listed correctly in their system. They confirmed, and said that someone should contact us at some point. 
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So here we are and still nothing from Air.
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Anyone else sign up? Did they actually reach out to you?
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I didn’t sign up for Afghan hosting but I did reach out to Airbnb after the Walmart shooting in Aug 2019. I was contacted both by email and phone by someone who was associated with the program. I think someone at some point told me he was actually the guy in charge of the whole program. In any case, no one stayed with me even though I’m less than a half mile from the hospital where half the victims were taken.
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Perhaps they wouldn’t contact anyone who signed up for this unless they had someone looking for a placement in your area?
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Hardly surprising you weren’t contacted…
a) the US has taken very few Afghan refugees in relation to its size/wealth .
B) I don’t believe from what you’ve said previously that you live in an area where refugees are likely to be resettled
Presumably Airbnb will only contact a host if they have a family needing housing.
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The 25 counties accepting the most Afghan refugees in 2020
Most refugees from Afghanistan leave the country on foot, crossing borders into neighboring Pakistan or Iran. The United States appears on this list at number 22. These figures do not include asylum seekers.
Pakistan
1,438,432
Iran
780,000
Germany
147,994
Austria
40,096
France
31,546
Sweden
29,927
Greece
21,456
Switzerland
14,523
Italy
12,096
Australia
10,659
UK
9,351
India
8,275
Indonesia
5,863
Tajikistan
5,573
Netherlands
5,212
Belgium
4,689
Turkey
4,219
Norway
4,007
Finland
3,331
Canada
2,261
Denmark
2,134
United States of America
1,592
Malaysia
1,517
Hungary
1,503
Syria
1,107
And Where does the world stand on Afghan refugees? | Refugees News | Al Jazeera
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Actually, our area is ideal. We are in the most populated area in the USA. Perhaps you may have remembered that from someone else?
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Apparently, they first go to a Military base, for some kind of processing and this takes quite some time. Then, “final distribution”. If that is the case, perhaps we’ll see things happen in Jan or beyond. I had expected it to be far more urgency, to bring them over and place them.
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I am surprised that Air has not queued up willing hosts, especially with the political marketing clout to be gained.
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@muddy those stats are old. We have seen over 27,000 refugees in a few months through a local airport - and that is only one of many.
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Yes, I realize those charts were from 2020. I couldn’t find anything similar from 2021.
Perhaps you’ll sign up too? Mexico is a participating country …
I’m actually still closed until I can get my second vax. I would be open to housing an Afghan refugee, for sure. But I only host one guest at a time, and I doubt there’s a lot of call for that, though I don’t really know.
I kind of doubt they would be placing refugees in a little expensive tourist town, though. There certainly wouldn’t be any services or support network for them here. I know there are some refugees in Mexico City.
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How odd. You would seem to have been an ideal match for “someone”? RE Afghans / 20,000 via Air / etc - eventually, we may find out if any of it is real or just PR.
FYI - 2nd shot timing …
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Hi @Jefferson
If you actually want to host refugees then speak to your local refugee charity or local government scheme . I wouldn’t do this through Airbnb.
It doesn’t matter how big your general population is it depends how many Afghan refugees are living in your area as to whether refugees are likely to want to settle in your community.
Each country has different timings in the UK we leave six months between 1st and 2nd vaccinations.
Don’t you mean that each vaccine BRAND has different Timings?
No I mean that different countries have different times that they allow between first and second vaccine and booster vaccinations. @Rolf
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Are you sure? That’s not the case in Scotland, six to eight weeks being the preferred time scale for Pfizer and eight to twelve weeks for AstraZeneca, these two being the most common administered.
JF
Sorry I should have said in England @JohnF
Pfizer and Modena are being used for booster vaccinations in England unless you have had a reaction to these .
Air committed very publicly to house 20,000 refugees. We talked about it and decided to opt in to their program, and we’ll see what happens.
Ok - the quote was CDC guidelines. I assume that they know better than we do.
CDC is US based. Other countries make their own decisions based on vaccine availability and public health priorities.
In Canada we have had slow distribution so most people have not been in a position to choose the dates of our shots. Most people have had two, and now boosters are being delivered starting with the most vulnerable.
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