I am a voluntary collectivist so when I say democratic representation I mean people have a say in how the program is arranged. I’m not a big fan of representative democracy as it is too easy to co-opt. This is why I mentioned credit unions, as they are collectively owned and subject to member votes. They are not based on legal mandates with the threat of the state behind them but some semblance of mutual agreement between the members. (In practice actual credit unions vary in their real world democratic practices but I’m talking about the more democratic kind.)
The problem with Airbnb running home loans is that the people running those programs have different interests than the community at large. They may focus on profit opportunity at the expense of equitable access or community stability. In practice this would for example lead them to pursue those with more wealth to give up rather than focusing on everyone including those in dire need of secure housing. And if the people have a problem with this there’s not much they can do except try to appeal to Airbnb’s customer base for a boycott.
My point is that you can have democracy without the state and that is what I am advocating. You might be fine with Airbnb running a home loan scheme but to me that sounds like bad news.
And more to the point it’s not what I want to support. I believe strongly in the value of collective well being and I want to support systems that support that. I don’t think hierarchical top down companies can bring us the collective well being I imagine.
That said if you do want to use the state to improve the situation, Singapore and Vienna are great examples for how to do it. Or we could learn from those examples and replicate them with voluntary credit unions. Either way it’s good stuff. I’d look up the many reports of bad outcomes when major investment firms buy properties to see what a home loan program ran by Airbnb would be like.