It gives a whole new meaning to the term “bus shelter” – the next stop for some retired city buses will be serving as shelters for the homeless.

A Honolulu, Hawaii, project called LIFT plans to collect 70 city buses from storage and convert them into homeless shelters. The buses were retired because they had too many miles on them, but soon they’ll find new life helping people from the streets they once traveled.

Architecture firm Group 70 International has drawn up three distinct designs with some of the buses providing sleeping space for up to eight people (pictured at right), others will be turned into mobile showers and still others converted into recreation centers.

Group 70 kept the designs simple so that untrained volunteers will be able to repurpose them with donated tools and materials. A major inspiration for the design came from Lava Mae, which has retrofitted California buses and turned them into shower stations for the homeless. The group aims to have working bathrooms.

LIFT wants to have at least three of the 40-foot converted buses on the road sometime this summer.

(WATCH the video and READ more at the Boston Globe) — Photo: Simon_sees, CC; KITV video

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