Leadership group behind sleep bus drive

FIVE participants in the Committee for Ballarat’s leadership program, Future Shapers, are encouraging people to lend their support to a push to establish a sleep bus in the city.

Branded as Sleepbus, the project involves setting up mobile homeless shelter offering people a place to rest.

Future Shapers participant Joeline Rayment said having one in the region would serve as “tangible” aid to people with insecure housing.

“It’s offering a possible, actionable solution and a supportive treatment for our homeless situation in Ballarat,” she said.

“A lot of them can’t get a safe spot to sleep and that’s before you even remember our winters can be bloody freezing.

“That environment affects your ability to engage with services, your mental and physical health, everything declines.”

A sleep bus in Ballarat would provide overnight accommodation for more than 20 homeless or rough sleepers.

Ms Rayment said their fundraising goal builds on the Future Shapers homelessness forum, Ballarat, where are you sleeping tonight? which took place in November.

The group is set to host a charity screening of Mrs Harris Goes to Paris at Regent Cinemas on Friday, 4 November with the goal of raising about $100,000.

More fundraising activities will be organised, and Ms Rayment said the results will be from the community, for the community.

“If we can raise that money, we’ll have a Sleepbus here just like the Soupbus, like the [One Humanity] Shower Bus. It’ll be ours and ran by the community,” she said.

“It will be able to support our homeless and rough sleepers while the other programs are doing what they can to move the system along with transitional housing and things like that.

“The rough sleepers in Ballarat have almost doubled in the last 12 months. We don’t want it get worse.”

Alongside Ms Rayment, the initiative is being coordinated by Future Shapers participants Bicarra Gazanis, Charaka Lelwala, Chrystal Douflias and Renata Rotast.