OPERATOR
SLEEPBUS.ORG
SLEEP MAKER
Each year in Australia, fluctuating fortunes have meant multiple thousands of people unfortunately are forced to sleep on the streets unsheltered every night, let alone have some place safe to stay for longer. If indeed ‘charity begins at home’, what if that home is actually a bus – a ‘sleepbus’, to be precise?
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WORDS FABIAN COTTER IMAGES COURTESY SLEEPBUS.ORG
hen a business or organisation’smission statement is so impactful that it could better off used as a societal clarion call for a lost and wistful nation, arguably it is time to take note. “Welcome to the family!” Spotswood, Melbourne-based Sleepbus – winner of the 2017 Telstra Victorian Charity of the Year award – starts its introduction to the masses. “When people work together, their strengths magnify. Family bestows them with a collective power to withstand all kinds of hardship. This is why family is extremely important,” it explains. “Sleepbus is a non-profit organisation bringing safe overnight accommodation to people sleeping rough in Australia. Our accommodation is not a long-term solution; we don’t offer counselling, we don’t give money, we don’t provide the Ritz. What we do provide is a safe night’s sleep; we get people off the street,” it succinctly explains. “Sleepbus is distinct yet complementary to existing efforts from other organisations supporting Australians experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness. Our work aims to fill a ‘gap’ rather than overlap or replicate activities that support the urgent needs of people in Australia.” At the heart of the matter is its beautifully simplistic mantra, one that is often forgotten or taken for granted by many of the time-poor and rat-race-challenged among us these days: ‘Sleep changes everything.’ “Our mission [is] to bring safe overnight accommodation to people sleeping rough in Australia,” it continues. 42
“Our vision [is] to end the need for people sleeping rough in Australia,” and that: “Our family … will use its collective power to help people find pathways out of homelessness.” So what inspired Sleepbus founder and CEO Simon Rowe [spoiler alert: he and his family do much of the fabrication work on the buses themselves! Let’s just let that sink in for a moment] to start such a benevolent entity that offers dignity and grace each night for often dejected and despondent ‘guests’ whom have nowhere safe, clean, comfy and simply nice to sleep? “In short, I found the tiredest man I had ever seen and my kids told me to do something about it,” a justifiably busy Rowe
Our vision is to end the need for people sleeping rough in Australia. explained to ABC magazine, recently. “I am extremely proud of my boys [now 21 years old] who have dug in, worked hard, helped me when I needed it and been a massive supporter of what I’m trying to do – that’s pretty special,” said Rowe. “After all, all of this is their fault,” he laughed. “Because of the effect ‘the tiredest man I had ever seen’ had on me, my boys [15 at the time] challenged me to do something about it and this set in motion a complete life change for me; from the business and corporate arenas to the charity sector and
bus building – and I wouldn’t change it for the world,” he explained.
THE FLEET The sleepbus.org bus fleet currently consists of: 1x Scania 1995 three-axle; 1x Volvo 1995 three-axle, 1x Mercedes-Benz 1992 two-axle, 1x Motorcoach 1992 two-axle, 1x PMC two-axle (as a workshop) – it drives, but not registered; 1x Mercedes-Benz 1990 two-axle as a stationary laundry bus (no engine or gearbox); and a Hino two-axle as a future medical bus to be called ‘sleepbus Health’. “I’m not sure what bodies they are – they are sleepbus ones now,” he joked. “The workshop bus drives and we obviously use this for our workshop to keep us out of the weather,” Rowe explained. “We also get our depot for free, but the landlord may need to move us to other locations from time to time, so it was important that our set-up was mobile and we could just drive to the a new location and just keep going, so no setup required. “The laundry bus is set up to just plug into an extension power cord and garden hose and the commercial laundry fires up! We just have to tow that if we have to move, which hasn’t happened yet.”
THE STRUCTURE So how many people are involved at the core of Sleepbus and what are their connections exactly, you might ask – all family members, or people from all walks of life just wanting to get involved? And what drives them as a team to make a change? “I would say every charity starts just like
ABC February 2021 busnews.com.au
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16/02/2021 10:15:00 AM
