Welcome to this month’s edition of #WATWB- We are the World Blogfest, where the last Friday of the month, we share some of the good things going on in the world to deflect from the negative. For this edition I wanted to shed light on a good deed doer who came up with a great idea to help give the homeless homes by converting old school buses into ‘skoolies’ – tiny homes.

 

Turning School Buses Into Tiny Homes for Homeless Families

 

Everyone needs  a roof over their heads. It could be a villa, an apartment in the sky, a cabin in the woods, or a converted school bus.

For Julie Atkins, turning old school buses into tiny homes for working homeless families is a great solution. She came up with the idea when she was a freelance journalist living in Ashland Oregon when she began researching and chronicling the stories of homeless people according to People.

She spent two years pitching a tent and living alongside homeless people in Denver Colorado. What she found was, “They want to have a place to live that is their own, that’s safe — and they want to be mobile, so they can get better jobs,” Atkins told People.

Then she came across families living in old school buses.  She met a family with seven children who had ripped out the seats and were living on mattresses on the floor of the bus. “It was in disarray,” said Akins. “There was no toilet, shower, or kitchen.”

That’s when the idea for Vehicles for Change was born. Atkins thought that the buses have 240 square feet (22 square meters) of space and are retired from school districts when they are only 12 years-old so they are in good shape. You could add electricity, a kitchen, as well as a bathroom, and house a family in a “skoolie” converted bus. She launched the nonprofit in 2017. Please continue reading The Skoolie Bus Project

 

Below is a video where Julie Atkins talks about her idea to fund old school buses to convert into tiny homes.

 

 

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