A converted bus designed in the style of a pod hotel could help address the absence of crisis accommodation for homeless women in Canberra.
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More than $90,000 has been donated so far to the entirely community-funded initiative. The project is a collaborative effort between the National Council of Women ACT, Safe Shelter ACT and a number of churches including the Uniting Church Tuggeranong.
When the bus has been purchased, it will be available every night, but will be parked in different locations in church car parks across north and south Canberra.
National Council of Women ACT committee member Juanita Flett said they had been looking at the lack of available services for homeless women for around 18 months and decided this could help solve the problem.
A similar bus, called Sleepbus, has been trialled in Melbourne for the past two years.
"Whilst looking at the creation of an equivalent service to Safe Shelter for men we came across the Sleepbus model, it was appealing for many reasons," Ms Flett said.
"The Sleepbus can take single women, women with children and women with companion animals."
"We are very close to reaching our goal of $100,000 to bring the Sleepbus service to Canberra. Our intention is to have it operating in Canberra by May 2020, in time for the coldest months, it will then operate 365 days a year."
Ms Flett said the amount raised was phenomenal.
"A lot of people have been interested in supporting it off the bat. The thing that resonates with us as a group is there's just nothing for women and it is incomprehensible that there is nothing."
Ms Flett said a safe night's sleep should be accessible to everyone.
Safe Shelter is a men's shelter that runs over the winter months in Canberra. Organiser Richard Griffiths said while there was often emergency shelter for women escaping domestic violence, women experiencing "normal" homelessness - those who simply haven't got enough money to pay the rent - had no where to go.
Mr Griffiths said he was often hearing of women who have nowhere to stay, and the most common suggestion for those with cars was to sleep in a well-lit car park.
To donate to the Sleepbus visit the GoFundMe page.