First published February 12, 2019.
A retired bus with a new job
In 2017, a group of volunteers in Portsmouth, on England's south coast, took a double-decker bus that had reached the end of its working life and turned it into a 12-bed night shelter for people sleeping rough. The idea came from Joanne Vines, founder of The Rucksack Project, a local initiative that had spent several years collecting rucksacks packed with essentials for homeless people. She worked alongside Sammy Barcroft, and asked Stagecoach South whether it had an old bus to spare. The company donated one free of charge in the spring of 2017.
Portsmouth City Council backed the scheme that April, offering help with finding a site and with paperwork rather than money. The rest came from the community: tradespeople who gave their time, local firms that donated materials, a college construction class that built the bunks, and readers of the city's newspaper, The News, who raised funds. After about eight months of work, the finished bus was shown to the public at Fratton Park, Portsmouth FC's ground, on 26 November 2017, before moving to St Agatha's Church in Landport. Reports at the time put the cash spent at around $8,000 and the value of the finished job, including donated labour, at more than $33,000; these figures could not be independently confirmed. The photos below, taken by Paul Jacobs, follow the bus from scrap to shelter.
From 72 seats to an empty shell
The first job was to strip out everything a passenger bus needs and a shelter does not.
The bus sits in a fenced yard at the start of the project, with workbenches and sawhorses already set up beside it. Stagecoach's orange, blue and white livery is still intact. The site gave volunteers a safe place to work on evenings and weekends over several months.
A volunteer climbs a ladder to reach the upper-deck windows. The "in the South Downs" lettering shows the bus came from Stagecoach's regional fleet. Cleaning, sealing and checking the windows mattered, since a sleeping deck has to stay dry and draught-free through a British winter.
This is the upper deck before the work began, still lined with rows of blue patterned passenger seats and grab poles. Every one of these seats had to come out. The same deck would later hold all 12 bunks.
With the seats removed, the upper deck is an empty tube of bare floor and window frames. Seeing it stripped helps explain why the job took months: the volunteers were effectively building a small dormitory inside a vehicle, with new flooring, wiring, lighting and fixtures.
Downstairs, the lower deck is a building site, with plywood sheets stacked against the windows and a generator on the floor. This level was planned for the kitchen, seating area and toilet. Donated timber and materials, including from a Portsmouth builders' merchant, kept costs down.
Volunteers assemble the timber frames for the bunks. Third-year construction students at Highbury College measured the bus and built the beds, with their lecturer Russ Dugan helping to install them. It turned a charity project into hands-on training for young tradespeople.
Fitting out: bunks, kitchen and lounge
Once the shell was ready, the bus slowly started to look like somewhere a person could rest.
A volunteer kneels on one of the slatted bunk bases to hang a privacy curtain. Curtains matter more than they might seem: people who have slept on the street often say privacy and a sense of safety are as important as warmth. Each bunk also has its own small light.
The project's organisers welcome visitors at the finished bus. The side panels carry the names of supporters, including The News, which ran a "Running for the Bus" fundraiser. The open doorway gives a glimpse of the new lower-deck seating.
The kitchenette on the lower deck, with a worktop, sink and cupboards, is laid out here with sandwiches for the launch. Housing association VIVID donated and fitted the kitchen, according to local reporting. Being able to make a hot drink or a simple meal turns a bed for the night into somewhere to recover a little.
The finished sleeping deck, with bunks made up in red bedding along both sides and curtains that can be drawn for privacy. Twelve beds is a small number against a city's need, but for each person using one it meant a dry, safe night off the pavement.
The lounge area downstairs has upholstered blue benches and teal cushions arranged around a central aisle. A place to sit, talk and warm up during the evening is part of what makes a shelter feel humane rather than just functional.
A cushioned bench beneath one of the bus windows shows how volunteers used every corner. Small, comfortable spaces like this give guests somewhere to sit quietly away from the bunks.
Opening night and life on the bus
Joanne Vines stands in front of the finished bus, its destination board now reading "Bus Shelter Portsmouth". Her Rucksack Project had already collected thousands of rucksacks for homeless people before she took on the bus. The image became the face of the story when it spread online.
Once installed at St Agatha's, the bus was run by the Robert Dolling Project, which aimed to give rough sleepers a regular place to spend the night. A caretaker named Russell lived on board, and the Gosport Men's Shed helped fit cupboards and do repairs. Its coordinator, Alistair Thompson, told The News that many residents were dealing with problems beyond homelessness, and volunteers said the bus was especially valued by ex-service personnel.
It was not all smooth. In April 2018, The News reported that someone forced the door, stole items and wrecked the interior, and the shelter had to close for up to two weeks for a deep clean. The team called it despicable, cleaned up and carried on.
What a bus shelter can and cannot do
Portsmouth's bus was part of a wider idea in Britain around that time: retired buses turned into shelters, mobile showers or drop-in centres. A bus is cheap to obtain, can be moved, and is far quicker to convert than a building is to fund and plan.
The limits are real too. Twelve beds is a modest number, and a shelter needs more than bunks to work: a safe site, washing facilities, staff or a caretaker, rules about who can stay and for how long, and links to services that help people find permanent housing. Charities in Britain reportedly estimated around 300,000 people were homeless at the time, so no single project could be the answer.
What the bus did show is how much a community can build when people offer the skills they have, whether that is carpentry, a free kitchen, a bus no longer needed or a weekend with a paintbrush. If you want to help in your own area, local homelessness charities and night shelters are usually the best place to ask what is needed now.
Sources: photos by Paul Jacobs (Picture Exclusive); The Rucksack Project; routeone, April 2017; Government Business, April 2017; Express FM, June 2017; Builders Merchants News, November 2017; The News, Portsmouth, April 2018.
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