100 guests and counting
In March 2022 we passed a major milestone, with our 100th guest. It seems incredible that from that first day of opening, when we were all quite afraid that our idea perhaps wouldn't work, we have been able to help so many people.
The compassion and resourcefulness of our team and volunteers never ceases to amaze as we help our guests through the most difficult of times. On average a guest will stay with us for three or four months and for the majority we are able to see them move into somewhere they can call home where they have every chance of sustaining their tenancy and their new life.
The move to independent living is a huge step, so the team continues to offer support once a guest has moved on; this might be the odd food parcel, advice about bills, help with health and well being, or just a bit of company from time to time.
As well as the 100 guests who have actually stayed with us, several hundred more have been advised or supported and where possible signposted to other services - the scale of these enquiries show that there is still a great deal needed to help people experiencing or worrying about homelessness.
None of this would have been possible without the support of the Milton Keynes community and local and national businesses that have given us huge levels of support. There are too many to mention but we thank everyone; from the little girl who emptied the pocket money from her purse into our collecting bucket at intu, to the unexpected phone call from a telecoms company telling us they were making a substantial donation ... they all made such a difference and their support kept us going on the difficult days.
Over the past five years our journey has taken us from initial fundraising and opening our bus doors in 2018, through to reshaping services during the Covid-19 pandemic and moving to our new site.
2017 – Raising funds to buy and refit the bus
A group of MK citizens in 2018 got together due to concerns over the explosion of street homelessness over the bitterly cold winter of 2017/18, when every underpass in MK seemed to have people sleeping in tents. One of the founders had seen the idea of a "homeless bus" in the Isle of Wight and thought this could be an idea for MK. A couple of Facebook posts and a few phone calls and the initial team got together.
Originally planning to get hold of an old bus to renovate, we quickly realised that was beyond our skills ... a professional bus conversion company quoted £60k but suggested we look on Ebay as "they sometimes come up on there". We found one that had failed to meet its reserve price and were able to negotiate a bargain price of £10k. We recognised that if we were serious about having a bus this was a golden opportunity, and we borrowed the £10k from two supporters who believed in the project.
Someone else who believed in the project was Shelley Peppard, the General Manager at what was then intu MK (now Midsummer Place). We were made the intu MK "charity of the year" and the marketing team did an amazing job of organising our branding and a programme of fund raising events.
Shelley insisted that for our fund raising efforts to be successful we need to get the bus into the intu shopping centre. The team were very sceptical - especially when just a couple of days before the first event we saw the risk assessment forms that had to be completed!! Nonetheless, with the amazing help of Bill's Coaches, the former tour bus was manoeuvred into pride of place for the first of several times. Even today people will comment about seeing the bus at intu. It was a huge step forward for the charity, and after two or three successful fundraising weekends we were able repay the loan for the bus. Our initial target of £30,000 by Christmas was reached and exceeded by the time a site in a Campbell Park car park (Colgrain Street) for the bus to be located was made available to us by Milton Keynes Council and planning permission granted. Again, two or three key people advocating for our innovative project made a real difference and we will always be grateful.
2018 – Overcoming obstacles to open
We ran into numerous problems in getting the site useable and it was a very frustrating time. As just one example, Anglian Water could not find the mains water supply - it turned out there were no plans showing where the pipes were! We counted eight or nine visits - including a water diviner - and the adjacent redway had to be dug up before the water main was eventually located!
So it was later than we had hoped, but in March 2018 the doors of the bus were opened to offer accommodation and support to people who would otherwise be sleeping on the streets. Our first ever guest was living nearby in a tent in Campbell Park, and came down nearly every day in the month before we opened to ask if he could have a place.
As well as the bus, the Colgrain Street site had two converted shipping containers to provide bathrooms, laundry, kitchen, dinning and storage. We thought it would be important to allow dogs, so we bought a three bay kennels with funding from Tesco's "Bags for Help" scheme. Later on a timber office was donated by Dunster House ... that was a great day for the team and it felt like luxury as the office had previously been in the kitchen!
One former guest described his experience of being on the bus. "Now I can sleep, I can wash – I’m like a human being again".
2019 – Expanding our services
Our goal is not just to get people off the street, but also to support them in whatever ways we can so that they can get their lives back on track. Finding guests move on accommodation was proving to be a huge challenge. Thanks to a grant from Accenture's Hive programme we were employ an additional member of staff whose expertise helped our guests find safe, affordable and sustainable accommodation. This change made a massive difference and has become a fundamental part of our services.
2020 – Keeping going during the pandemic
We were aware that sometime during 2020 we would need to find a new site because our Campbell Park car park was designated for housing development. Our problems grew larger, along with the rest of the world in March. We instantly realised that communal sleeping on a badly ventilated bus was not safe, nor was the attendance of an average of 30 volunteers every week supporting the operations team and the guests. We were very lucky in being able to negotiate a short term rolling lease for the Youth Hostel Association building in Bradwell as the YHA could not accept visitors due to lock down. This meant we had seven individual bedrooms. In the end we stayed there until January 2021, with an increased operations team picking up the work of our army of volunteers.
During 2020 - and yes during Covid restrictions - we were offered a small, derelict landscaping depot in Stantonbury on a 10-year lease from Milton Keynes Council. To make the site a viable size we also entered into an agreement with The Parks Trust for addition land to the side and rear. The renovation proved much larger, more complicated and of course more expensive, than anticipated. As we came to October 2020 we realised that we would not be able to go back to using the bus due to the communal sleeping facilities. We therefore designed and ordered a bespoke shipping container conversion with a similar footprint to the bus but which provided individual Covid safe bedrooms.
2021 – Establishing a new long term home – George House
By the end of January 2021, our new site in Stantonbury was ready and we promoted our "housing expert" to the role of Operations Manager. No longer "the landscaping depot" we named the site George House, in memory of George Weir. George had been homeless in Milton Keynes for some years. He had helped us in the early days but sadly died in a church yard before we opened. We hope he would be pleased with what we have built in his name.
When Covid restrictions allowed, the Mayor of Milton Keynes at the time, Andrew Geary, came along to a small opening ceremony and declared The Bus Shelter MK's George House officially open!
During 2021, The Bus Shelter MK has grown from strength to strength. The team all agree that the new facilities really help make sure guests have somewhere which is warm, pleasant and has a lovely atmosphere where they can recover from the trauma of street homelessness, make new friends and get their lives back on track.
A huge thank you to all our supporters!
The Bus Shelter MK Team
