ShelterBus transforms double-decker buses into temporary mobile homeless shelters providing shelter, food, and access to a range of care services. Partnered with the local community to create a lifeline for those most vulnerable to homelessness and rough sleeping, the Rotary ShelterBus programme is designed to alleviate homelessness and rough sleeping in Greater Birmingham, with plans to extend across the United Kingdom.
In 2017 an estimated 185,000 people were directly affected by homelessness in the United Kingdom; since 2010 homelessness in the UK has increased 169%. Homelessness and rough sleeping is often a social issue that is overlooked; it isn't just affecting individual men and women throughout city centres who are asking for help, it's families struggling to make ends meet, single mothers worrying how they will afford to feed their babies and children taking the night bus as a warm place to sleep.
ShelterBus provides temporary shelter to support and care for the homeless and rough sleepers in our Greater Birmingham community. Ex-public transport double decker buses are transformed into mobile homeless shelters offering accommodation, showering facilities, a fully stocked kitchen and a consultation room. We're here to give shelter, nourishment, advice, support and encouragement when people need it most, helping them find their voice and preventing those most vulnerable from losing hope.
Partnering with local civic and private organisations will serve the holistic needs of those vulnerable to homelessness and rough sleeping. Temporary shelter will get more people off of the streets and into the hands of organisations that can work with them, to get them back on their feet, and actively into the local economy. Our long term aim is to take pressure off local authority temporary housing, focusing on a range of care to meet each tenant's holistic social, health and economic needs.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
