OUR APPROACH
If you want to do something about people sleeping on the street, start with one thing.
SLEEP.
There are 116,000 people homeless every night in Australia; of those 8,200 are sleeping rough on the streets and more than 1,000 are under 12 years old.
When a person doesn’t have access to a safe place to sleep, they put themselves at risk; physically and mentally. Let's face it, you can’t acutally ‘sleep’ on the street and this is where sleep deprivation kicks in and magnify’s those risks. Every. Single. Day a person is on the street, the harder and harder it becomes to find a pathway out.
When a person gets access to a safe place to sleep, things can change quickly. It can improve mental and physical health, decrease associated medical expenses and help make a pathway out of homelessness a little easier to see.
Why did we choose to focus on sleep? Because we truly believe sleep changes everything; we want to end the need for people to sleep rough; we want to catch them early and make sure they stay healthy and safe until they can get back on their feet. This starts with providing safe sleeps.
Service Snapshot
sleepbus® is run by Sleep Bus Ltd, 365 days per year; 8pm to 8am.
The operational hours have to be chosen so that it fits in with community expectation and concern. sleepbus literally rolls in at 8pm each night, long after people have left work and then we leave by 8am, before people return the next morning.
We have a combination of paid and volunteer staff assisting with the service each night. Paid staff are our security personnel, with volunteers assisting with putting away belongings and as well as assisting with pets where required.
Here’s how a typical sleepbus day looks:
| 7:00pm | sleepbus departs depot to approved locations for service |
| 8:00pm | sleepbus arrives at the approved location |
| 8:30pm | Onboarding of guests commences |
| 10:00pm | Onboarding complete and the Caretaker conducts last checks |
| 6:30am | Wake up call for all guests |
| 6:45am | Offboarding guests commences |
| 7:45am | Offboarding complete |
| 8:00am | sleepbus departs approved location |
| 9:00am | sleepbus reset process begins back at depot cleaning, repairs, maintenance, checks etc |
| 11:00am | Any sleepbus booked for site visits depart Corporate engagement, School/University visits etc |
| 5:00pm | All sleepbus are back in depot for spot checks |
Each sleepbus has a designated parking spot, where it stays for the night from 8pm until 8am; 365 nights a year. Some guests will come directly from referrals of support agencies within the area of each sleepbus, with any remaining sleep pods allocated on a first come, first serve basis; preferences given to the most vulnerable.
Volunteers will assist with storing their belongings and/or pets under sleepbus, this is overseen by a security officer, which allows the caretaker to focus on the onboarding of guests.
QUIET ENJOYMENT RULE
Our only rule. Please remain quiet and considerate of other guests at all times, so everyone can enjoy a good nights sleep
Thank you, Simon
We have just one simple, but important rule for our guests; Quiet Enjoyment.
Anyone is welcome on sleepbus, so long as you can adhere to this one rule, so that all guests can enjoy a quiet nights sleep. Sleep pod doors must be closed at all times and noise kept to a minimum. Once on board sleepbus, guests can not come and go through the night. If they choose to leave, they may not return for safety and adherence to the Quiet Enjoyment rule. Our focus is on providing safe sleeps for those in need.
We conduct a short survey of guests as they board, as much information as they wish to provide, thich then populates our live portal (names withheld) so the supporters, agencies and partners can see what’s happening, as it happens in the field. This includes number of guests, ages, male/ female, days homeless, number of safe sleeps provided by this bus to date etc.
