Sleeping in Bus Shelters

When you say you have a roof over your head, you don’t mean a bus shelter. Homeless people in this city do. They started using downtown bus shelters as bedrooms around 2020-2021. They are not the same size. High density bus stops like the main library and bus stops that feed the local university have bigger shelters than uptown ones.

City Hall politicians always push and pull each other about the issue, but there is no consensus because political party affiliation gets in the way. City Hall’s current strategy is asking homeless people to leave, clean bus shelters and then remove doors and glass panels. The shelter becomes a structure with just a roof and four pillars.

During the summer, bus passengers stand outside when they see people sleeping inside bus shelters. They open umbrellas if it’s raining. The challenge is winter because the city is one of coldest in Canada. They wear layers of clothing because they’ll wait for the bus outside in snow blizzards.

It is so cold, bus shelter seats are heated. Does City Hall turn off the heat in occupied shelters? Maybe not. But even if it does, people sleep in groups to keep warm. Bus passengers will be out in the cold again this winter because City Hall has decided that more and more bus shelters should be door-less and have no glass walls.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.