What BUSS is doing to help the homeless and disadvantaged over winter

Volunteers are running the Shelter Café at the Bathurst Uniting Church hall in William Street.

The program provides free hot meals, as well as some snacks to take away, to people who are experiencing homelessness or other difficult circumstances.

In addition to this, people are able to get a change of a clothes and, where necessary, have a hot shower in the recently renovated bathroom.

With winter being a time of high demand for BUSS, the service could use some more volunteers to support the Shelter Café and other programs.

"People who would like to cook meals, we'd like to hear from them," BUSS coordinator Julie Fry said.

The meals cooked by volunteers are frozen and stored until they are needed at the Shelter Café.

"The cafe's going and growing on Saturdays and Sundays, and demand for that is increasing as the weather gets colder," Ms Fry said.

For those who want to help but aren't in a position to volunteer, donations are also accepted.

At the moment, BUSS is in need of blankets and doonas, snack foods and UHT milk.

These items are passed on to people who reach out to BUSS for support.

In addition to the weekend café, BUSS opens the shower at the church hall between 12pm and 2pm daily, so those who don't otherwise have access to bathroom facilities can have a hot shower.

The café and shower facilities serve as a replacement for the overnight emergency accommodation that BUSS started off as in 2018.

Accommodation was scrapped during the pandemic to comply with restrictions, and has never been reinstated due to how difficult it is to find the number of volunteers needed to run that service.

However, Ms Fry said the loss of the emergency accommodation has had a silver lining.

"The thing we've discovered is, if we don't have to put all our personnel and resources into running a homeless shelter - and it is incredibly intensive and expensive to run a homeless shelter - without that we are now running a heap of different programs, bringing new programs online all the time, because everything isn't just going into an overnight shelter," she said.

For more information about the programs BUSS runs, or to inquire about volunteering or donating, visit the group's Facebook page.

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