Airbnb Billionaire Plans Factory-Built Homes for LA Fire Victims
Billionaire Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb Inc. and a board member of Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc., plans to donate $15 million of factory-built dwellings to victims of the Los Angeles wildfires.
The pre-fabricated houses — made by Gebbia’s startup, Samara — will first go to low-income residents whose properties burned in Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods, according to a statement. The Samara homes can be built in as little as five months and require only weeks to install.
The homes will be 100% funded, including installation costs. The effort is being coordinated by Steadfast L.A., a nonprofit started by billionaire mall developer Rick Caruso to help rebuild the city.
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“This initiative is about keeping communities intact,” said Caruso, whose family foundation will also provide funding for the housing. “We’re giving these victims a realistic way to stay on their properties and quickly return to their lives at a time when the deck is stacked against them.”
Last month’s wildfires killed at least 29 people and destroyed 16,000 structures, including 11,000 single-family homes. Economists at the University of California at Los Angeles estimated this month that total property and capital losses from the fires will be as much as $164 billion.
Gebbia, 43, joined Tesla’s board in 2022 and is worth $9.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The New York Times reported last week he is joining Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, which is aggressively cutting government jobs, spending and contracts under President Donald Trump.
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Gebbia launched Samara soon after leaving Airbnb full-time in 2022. The company builds and sells affordable, small homes for installation in backyards.
“Our hearts go out to all the individuals, families, and communities impacted by these destructive wildfires,” Gebbia said in the statement. “So many people are faced with unbelievable circumstances. We want to help them get back home.”
Samara’s smallest homes typically start at $147,000. Larger units sell for about $275 per square foot ($2,960 per square meter). Custom homes could cost some $1,500 per square foot to rebuild, though the use of merchant builders would bring that down significantly, according to a report this week from UCLA.
Backyard Homes
California has already been undergoing a boom in small backyard homes — called accessory dwelling units, granny flats or in-law units — as a way to relieve the state’s chronic shortage of affordable housing. In Los Angeles County last year, property owners pulled 4,085 building permits for ADUs compared with 2,965 permits for single-family homes, according to data compiled by the California Homebuilding Foundation.
Steadfast L.A. will create an independent organization to administer and facilitate the eligibility, building, and installation process between victims and Samara, according to the statement. It intends to work closely with local officials to ensure the houses can be installed quickly.
The wildfires spurred an outpouring of hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from numerous nonprofits and GoFundMe campaigns. Mark Walter, owner of the LA Dodgers, pledged as much as $100 million through an initiative launched by Governor Gavin Newsom. Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times, and Snap Inc. Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel announced their own initiatives.
Executives from Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc., McKinsey & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. as well as real estate, engineering and architecture firms joined Caruso’s Steadfast L.A.
Top photo: Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb Inc. Photographer: Matthew Busch/Bloomberg.