The Walk will raise funds to support the work of the non-for profit charity Swags for Homeless. This innovative organisation has designed a portable sleeping kit that makes sleeping in the open relatively comfortable for the more than 16,000 people who sleep rough every night in this Lucky Country.

Swags for Homeless provides a high-tech swag that has been specially designed to suit the situation of homeless people. The existing alternatives–from cardboard to standard indoor sleeping materials like blankets–all fail in the harsh outdoor urban world the homeless inhabit:

• Cardboard acts as a mattress of sorts, but it provides too little softness, can’t cope with rain, is easily destroyed, fireprone, and personally degrading;
• Doonas and blankets are warm but can’t double for a mattress; they are useless in the rain, prone to mildew, difficult to carry, and so on. Blankets donated to the homeless end up being dumped–for good reason–very soon after they are donated;
• Canvas products are heavy to carry, and must be carefully water-treated to even approach being waterproof–issues that a fit recreational hiker can handle, but not a homeless person.

Faced with these unsuitable options, the founders of Swags for Homeless decided to design their own alternative. They invented a material they christened UltTrex Lite that is far lighter, more comfortable and durable than canvas, and designed a portable swag using it that is a masterpiece of design, as the animated GIF below illustrates:

• It weighs 4 kilos, versus 7-10 kilos for canvas equivalents;
• It is waterproof to an incredibly high standard (the material can support 5 metres of water pressure without leaking or breaking);
• The material still breathes air easily, meaning that the sleeper doesn’t get sweaty by sleeping inside it;
• The bed has a durable and comfortable foam floor;
• There is a built-in mosquito net, and features to provide protection from wind, security against thieving, and even a lockable compartment for things like mobile phones (yes, homeless people can have them and need them) and money;
• The swag is made using environmentally friendly materials and processes–PVC was specifically avoided because of its dangers both to the environment and the person using it.

Despite all those features, the cost has been kept to a minimum: every donation of A$60 enables one of these to be given for free to a homeless person.

There are over 100,000 homeless persons in Australia. About half are lucky enough to be temporarily staying with friends and relatives; others are in boarding houses, shelters for the homeless and son on. But the remaining 16,000 are sleeping rough, and while it’s all very well to campaign for more permanent accommodation for them, for now and the foreseeable future, they will have to sleep on the streets.

Please make a donation to sponsor the run and help provide a homeless person with a better night’s sleep. We all know what it’s like to wake up and have to face the day after a lousy night; it’s difficult to get through the day, even with the assistance of good shelter, friends, family, and full-time work. Imagine what it’s like to start the day with a bad night’s sleep and none of those things as well.

You can help make homeless person’s struggle to survive just that little bit easier by making a donation to Swags for Homeless via this link. I’ve made a personal donation of $240, and I hope that donations to the walk will multiply this many times.

As with any registered charity, donations of $2 or more are tax deductible–though the preferred minimum donation is $20. Swags will keep a record of donations raised by The Walk, so by the end of the trek we will know just how much we’ve raised to help make homelessness in Australia less of a curse than it currently is.

Further information

• The peak body on homelessness is Homelessness Australia;
• Swags for Homeless’s product is so good that recreational hikers asked whether a commercial version could be manufactured. That has now been done via a company called Charity Wear, and you can now purchase a swag for your own use for A$220 (plus shipping costs). I’ve purchased two for the Walk. Charity Wear is 100% owned by Swags for Homeless, and profits from sales of the personal swag make the charity almost self-sufficient (Only 1.89% of donated funds went to overheads, according to the ASIC Audit in March 2009);
• Swags for Homeless has been approached by local government authorities in Chicago to make a swag that could be suitable to homeless people in that windswept and often snowbound city.