Airbnb Steps Up, Helping to Put Deeds into Hopeful Hands

The New York City Housing Partnership is doing something interesting with Airbnb. It’s committed to a multi-year collaboration with the company.

The goal? To lift up gig workers and independently employed New Yorkers. The collaborators envision a new path to mortgage eligibility for contractual workers looking to acquire their first deeds. For the first year, the goal is to get deeds into the hands of a thousand households!

Here’s why and how.

New Ways of Working Must Mean New Pathways to Home Loans

The NYC Housing Partnership is a nonprofit that focuses on housing for people. Its purpose is promoting home ownership. The Partnership is dedicated to the social and economic well-being of all the places people call home in New York City. For more than four decades, the NYC Housing Partnership has helped make affordable housing available in all five of the City’s boroughs. It carries out its work by engaging developers, lenders, and government agencies at all levels.

“We partner with labor unions, organizations representing gig economy workers and community and faith-based organizations,” says the group’s president, Jamie Smarr. The nonprofit connects people with financial advice before and after a home purchase, as well as subsidy access. “This helps create knowledgeable and default-resilient buyers ready for a lifetime of homeownership.”

Smarr notes how different the economy has become over a generation or two. Given the changes in the ways people work, the NYC Housing Partnership has seen the need to set up a new initiative: Pathways to Homeownership.

Who is this program geared for?

• Gig economy workers.

• Freelance experts.

• Seasonal workers.

• Self-employed business owners.

What’s the common theme here? Non-traditional income streams. For many independent workers, deeds have been too hard to reach for decades. And lending standards still don’t reflect the realities of entrepreneurship or the way work has changed.

So, the initiative supports contract workers who want deeds of their own, but have a hard time convincing lenders to accept income proof that doesn’t depend on pay stubs and W2s.

The “Pathways to Ownership” Program Helps Earners in a Changed Work Economy

The Housing Partnership’s new Pathways to Homeownership provides customized workshops and one-on-one advising. The idea is to show how self-employment income can be documented as qualifying income for a mortgage loan. Other workshops are offered on creating income streams, supporting the health of a business, building home equity, and avoiding mortgage default. What’s more, the participants will get access to private, local, and state-based down payment assistance sources.

OK, so what is Airbnb’s position here? Why is the company investing in, and donating to, this New York City initiative?

Through this partnership, Airbnb displays a concern and a stake in communities where it operates. Plus, many people who use the Airbnb platform are earning nonstandard income. Participants in the new program will learn how to show their rent payments—or guest-hosting income—as eligible for mortgage lenders’ consideration.

Warren Gardiner, a senior policy manager for Airbnb New York, calls acquiring a deed “one of the strongest pathways to building long-term financial stability and generational wealth.” Everyone who is capable of repaying a loan should get one, Gardiner says—not just those with traditional employment and earnings. Gig workers, Gardiner insists, aren’t a new or marginal population. They are indispensable to the workings of New York City and need to be acknowledged as such. Like all New Yorkers, they need access to safe, appealing, and financially accessible homes.

The Partnership Has Its Origins in Federal Law

For more than four decades, the nonprofit NYC Housing Partnership has facilitated the development and preservation of nearly 100,000 housing units for modest earners across the City. And the NYC Housing Partnership’s Pathways to Homeownership itself is more than 20 years in the making.

It sprang forth from a Homeownership Counseling Program that debuted in 2005, with the approval of the federal Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD). That program was designed to support New Yorkers of modest means on their way to obtaining a deed.

Continuing that history, the NYC Housing Partnership offers education and guidance from HUD-Certified Housing Counselors. Participants become equipped to plan the process of acquiring a mortgage and the title to a home for the first time. Those who are becoming “mom and pop” investor- owners can also get training. Indeed, taking a landlord course is necessary for buyers looking to get a loan with the benefits of the Community Reinvestment Act.

More Support From Airbnb in Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Memphis

Airbnb just took part in another high-profile project to address local affordability challenges. The eight-day Affordable Homeownership Bus Tour made stops in eight cities. The journey began on April 25, 2026, in Philadelphia. The final two stops took place on the first weekend in May.

Each stop offered workshops on approaching today’s housing market and acquiring a deed.

Presented by the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) and the African American Mayors Association (AMMA), the tour brings together a broad coalition, including local real estate groups, housing agencies, elected officials, and faith communities. The multi-city trip is part of NAREB’s initiative to “Close the Gap” in deed ownership.

What gap are they talking about? The Black homeownership rate is 44%, versus 75% for households identified as white. Black millennials are acquiring deeds at only half the rate of their white peers.

Airbnb joined the NAACP and the Urban League, among others, as sponsors of the tours. Corporate sponsorships also came from major banks in the cities where racial wealth gaps are wide. The cities chosen for the tour suffer alarming disparities in mortgage approvals:

• Philadelphia’s Black population, at 39% of the city, got only 28% of the mortgages issued in 2024.

• Kansas City’s 24% Black population got only 13% of its mortgage originations.

• Memphis’s 61% Black population received just 41% of mortgage loan originations.

Airbnb sponsored all three of the above cities’ tours. Other stops included Baltimore, Detroit, Tulsa, Little Rock, and Gary. In every one of these cities, the goal is to create entry points that transform renting households into deed holders, and support their ability to build lasting wealth. To that last point, the workshop on heirs’ property rights focused on claiming rights to properties informally handed down through past generations.

The tours set good examples for cities by coaching hopeful deed holders. They brought workshops and “strategic partnerships” with housing companies and lenders. Good work, team.

Inheriting a home? Read our guide to the basics of acquiring a deed though inheritance.