Amidst the pall of gloom and despondency cast by the coronavirus outbreak, co-living space provider Zolostays is offering rent-free stay for 75 days to all its residents who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic and also to former residents who have stayed at one of its 450 properties pan India for a minimum of six months.

The five-year-old start-up’s co-founder and CEO Doctor Nikhil Sikri sent out an email to the residents and former residents earlier this month which was joyfully acknowledged - with over 600 of them gratefully accepting the offer available from June 15 to August 31.

IT engineer Ananya Patra — who pays ₹15,000/month for a single room accommodation at Zolo Cosmos, Bengaluru ever since she moved out of Uttar Pradesh three years ago and was laid off during the lockdown — in an email to Zolostays said: “During this pandemic, employers are relieving employees to cut costs. Even in this kind of crisis, you are extending support just like family, even though it is difficult providing rent-free stay to each one of us. I am heartily thankful for your noble cause Nikhil Sikri and Team Zolo. Always been a delighted customer and always will be.”

“I am the only bread winner in my family and shifted to Zolo Twins, Hyderabad from my home city Vizag for a better job opportunity, six months ago. I lost my job due to the pandemic, went into depression and had lost all hope in life. With severe money constraints it was not easy to motivate myself to go out and look for a job. Zolostays has taken a huge burden off my shoulders, offering me rent-free stay until I find a new job. My heartfelt thanks and gratitude to Zolo,” said techie Sai Ashok Madugula, who was paying ₹8,500/month for a triple sharing room.

At first, Zolostays dedicated its entire HR bandwidth to help residents who were laid off to find new jobs but the lockdown made the process very slow. “We realised that getting jobs for Zoloites and former Zoloites is not totally in our hands. However, we could alleviate their mental and financial stress in our own small way by offering them two and half months of rent-free stay. Fortunately, some of our property owners also offered to support us by not charging us lease rentals for 75 days,” said Sikri.

The start-up is busy organising webinars on ‘how to write your resume’ and on ‘how to answer questions in a job interview’ over the next few weekends to boost Zoloites’ chances of clinching jobs soon. “At Zolostays, we follow a community philosophy of ‘with you, for you, always.’ Once a Zoloite, always a Zoloite” he said.

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