Millionaire makes 'bin pods' for rough sleepers by joining wheelie bins together
Hundreds of thousands of Brits across the nation will go to sleep tonight without a roof over their head.
In the UK, it is estimated a staggering 120,000 homeless people are children and young adults. Charities fear this number could be even higher as homelessness is 'difficult to measure' and often doesn't include those sleeping with friends or strangers.
The stigma of having nowhere to stay at night can often contribute to shortened mortality rates and a lower quality of life - but access to help isn't always possible. However, one multimillionaire is determined to fix the issue with a controversial invention: Sleeping Pods.
Brexit Party candidate Peter Daw has fashioned the 'sleep pod' out of two red wheelie bins, which turn on a hinge to create enough room for someone to lie down in. The entrepreneur, who picked up 1.9% of the votes when he ran in the General Election in Cambridge last year, says the invention costs just £100.
Mr Dawe, who has dozens of companies and projects listed on his website, believes the invention can have a global impact. "I saw on the telly rough sleepers complaining they had been kicked and p****d upon," he said in 2020.
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"Lying on the street in a sleeping bag, you are very vulnerable." Mr Dawe came up with the idea after building a prototype for a single person car, also from a bin. In undertaking R and D for the vehicular-waste disposal unit he got inside a bin and discovered how comfortable it was.
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"I was actually quite delighted," Mr Dawe of Ely, Cambridgeshire, said of the results. "It was definitely comfier than sleeping on the ground in a tent. It was totally draught proof, in fact it's storm proof.
"It's really cosy, comfortable and dry." However, the businessman admitted that the design had caused some eyebrows to be raised. "It is a Marmite design," he continued.
"Some people think it's genius, others are actually horrified. It's denigrating to be rough sleeping - end of story. I think it is more comfortable and more secure sleeping in a sleep pod, rather than being huddled in a wet sleeping bag being kicked.
"I'm not solving homelessness or the rough sleeper problem, I'm just mitigating it or giving them the opportunity to. I try not to make any presumptions, and in my view no one should either."
When asked whether he had slept in his invention himself, Mr Dawe said he has laid down in one for ten minutes. He suggested that the product could be used as a storage space for clothes and other items in the day time.
When Mr Dawe took two of the prototypes to a local homeless shelter in Cambridge, no volunteers came forward to try it out. The invention has attracted some scorn on social media.
The Mirror's Real Britain columnist, Ros Wynne Jones, said at the time: "I recently interviewed someone who had been homeless and forced to sleep in a bin during bad weather, and it was the only bit of their whole awful story where they cried, because it was so utterly humiliating to have to say it out loud."
Matthew Taylor said: "This is possibly one of the worst and most demeaning inventions I've ever seen. Bear in mind that you could buy a cheap tent for that price and it might actually work to sleep in.
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Graeme Stewart said: "People genuinely think shipping containers for the homeless are a great idea.Well this is next level stuff. I don't know whether to laugh in disbelief or cry."
If you're struggling with homelessness - check out these resources.
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