In a Suffolk town where the number of people living on the streets has risen 61.5% since 2010, one family has taken it into their own hands to try to help some of the rough sleepers bedding down in shop doorways and camped on the waterfront. It all started in November 2016, when Gareth and Sarah Brenland were eating in a restaurant in Ipswich town centre and saw a homeless person outside. Gareth asked the waiter if he could buy the man dinner, but the waiter refused, saying they had no takeaway boxes. Instead, Gareth ran to the nearby McDonald’s.

Being unable to get this man out of his head, Gareth and his family decided to take action. They started a Facebook group asking for donations for clothes and sleeping bags to hand out in the evenings. It was through talking to the people they met on the streets that they realised that there was a need for more dry, warm places to sleep.

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So, the Brenlands decided to buy a secondhand bus and turn it in into a shelter for homeless people. They saw the double-decker former school bus for sale on eBay, and the owners, Stephensons of Essex, a privately owned bus company, gave it to them for free. Then Gareth, a tradesman, put in a kitchen and bathroom – donated by local businesses – and created 14 sleeping pods, a lounge and dining area.

The project cost around £25,000, raised through donations and crowdfunding. The bus, known as Tiffers, is named after their 15-year-old daughter who has been as dedicated to the project as her parents.

A year on and Sarah has given up her job as a complaints call handler, and she and Gareth are dedicating their lives to helping homeless people. They only have up to seven people on board at one time, so the guests, as they call them, get the time and quality support they need, says Sarah. She describes the bus as a “whole rehabilitation centre”. If people have drink or drug problems they have to try to abstain and sign up to a rehabilitation programme, run on the bus by the charity, Turning Point in order to be allowed to stay.

The Brenlands refer people they find sleeping rough to their bus and staying there is free. Most are entitled to social housing and are actively bidding for a home on the council’s website. Others deemed intentionally homeles, are helped to find houses by the Brenlands. They have also opened their own secondhand shop in Ipswich, which not only sells donated clothes to the public, but gives out clothes and essentials for free to up to 15 people a day. “The shop has become a bit of a drop-in centre and people come in for a chat to tell us how they are getting on. We strongly advise people to keep in touch with us,” says Sarah. It is also providing voluntary work for Darryl, who the Brenlands brought on to the bus in November.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Darryl was a former heroin addict and homeless until November last year, but now he lives on the bus and is assistant manager at a charity shop also run by the family. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

“When Darryl first came to us, he was a heavy heroin and crack user,” says Sarah. “He funded his habits through shoplifting, meaning he would get arrested.” He signed up to the rehab programme, has now been clean for seven weeks and is the shop’s assistant manager. “We are all hugely proud of him and how well he’s done. That’s very important to us. This year, we had all of them round to our house on Christmas day for dinner,” she says.

The Brenlands work alongside some homelessness charities in the town, such as the Teapot Project, which redistributes surplus food supplies to those who need it. But they feel that their unorthodox methods are frowned on by the local authority. “The council won’t have much to do with us. I think they are nervous because this is an untried and untested method,” says Sarah.

Asked whether the bus shelter can help make a dent in Ipswich’s homelessness problems, the council leader, David Ellesmere, says: “We do have the facilities and expertise in place to help rough sleepers but not everyone wants, or is able, to engage with the existing services. Any alternative provision which is able to work with these people, and is coordinated with existing providers, is therefore welcome.” He adds that Ipswich “faces the same pressures on homelessness and rough sleeping as all other large towns and cities in the UK in the face of government cutbacks. This year we are investing an additional £300,000 in helping people who are sleeping rough get off the streets which includes more emergency bed provision, a further £300,000 in homelessness prevention and £2.6m to purchase and convert a property which will provide additional temporary accommodation for another 40 households.”

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And Ipswich is not alone in setting up a bus shelter to house homeless people. With rough sleeper numbers in England up by 169% since 2010, the idea is gaining ground across England to help some of the 4,751 people estimated to be sleeping outside, according to overnight count figures recorded in 2017. The Brenlands got the idea for the bus shelter from the Isle of Wight, where a former homeless man had set one up a few months earlier. “Although the idea came from the Isle of Wight, our project is slightly different as each town has its own specific problems,” says Sarah. “Ipswich is a town where it’s very easy to get hold of heroin, so we’ve had to respond to that issue with our specific rules and a rehabilitation programme.” And a similar shelter exists in Milton Keynes. Although each project is independent, all three use the same branding on the buses and online to create a network.

Tom Davis launched the Milton Keynes bus at the same time as the Brenlands. He had been homeless and wanted to make a difference. Their specific problem in Milton Keynes, he says, is expensive rent and many people not being eligible for affordable housing. The Milton Keynes project is working with businesses such as an energy firm, which has agreed to train homeless people in skills needed to help them “build their careers”. The borough council has been supportive of the bus shelter, and has even agreed to lease a car park for them to park their bus in for 18 months, something Davis says that other projects have struggled with.. The Ipswich bus is parked up on a layby.

A local church in Portsmouth, and the Ark Project in Reading also have parked buses, providing a safe place people can come to during the day to get help for problems such as depression, debt, substance addiction and housing issues, with beds upstairs. The latest converts to the bus shelter are Oxford campaign group, Homes4All, which has just successfully crowdfunded to provide beds on a bus.

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Jacqui McCluskey, director of policy and communications at umbrella group, Homeless Link, says bus shelters “are examples of how communities can come together to help vulnerable people, addressing a gap in the support available, and providing an initial opportunity to engage with people who are homeless or sleeping rough”. But she doesn’t think they should be seen as a long-term solution. “What is required at a local level is joined-up interventions offering effective personalised support, as well as access to low-cost housing that can ensure people can move on from homelessness for good.”

Asked if the bus shelters were a response to failed government policy, a spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government comments: “We are supporting rough sleepers by bringing in the most ambitious legislation in this area in decades that will mean people get the support they need earlier.Through planning reform, release of public sector land, targeted investment and our social housing green paper, we will build the homes Britain needs and that people can afford.”

Back in Ipswich, Sarah says: “Every town should have a bus shelter.” And she emphasises that they are “just [like] a family next door who are trying their best to make a difference”.