While living homeless and on the streets, sleeping on city buses or other forms of public transportation is often the only choice one has when no other options are available. It’s a nightmare scenario that most people will never have to experience, so few can understand or empathize with those who live this nightmare every night. With limited space in cities for homeless people to safely and legally sleep, the choices on where to go in the middle of the night are sparse when it rains or becomes too cold outside.
Sometimes, public buses can be the most comfortable way to sleep for some people, but it can also be a cold and brutal experience for others. But as bad it may be, the other option of sleeping outside in bad weather isn’t exactly appealing either. These are the slim choices most homeless people living outside are presented with when shelters are either full, too expensive, or too difficult to reach by nightfall.
Sleeping on the Hotel 22 Bus
In my case, I had no other choice, and sleeping on buses was one of the worst things I had to endure while I was living on the streets. I spent many times sleeping on public buses when I was homeless in San Jose and throughout the Greater Bay Area. I was a regular patron of the infamous Santa Clara County VTA 22 bus, which earned the nickname “Hotel 22” among the area’s local homeless population.
This bus travels from San Jose to Palo Alto in California late into the night and in the early morning hours, so many homeless people would use it to get out of the cold while sleeping on the bus at night.
The route takes some considerable time to get from Point A to Point B between the two cities, but you have to disembark the bus and re-board it again each time it reaches its destination. This happens multiple times throughout the night, so I learned to sleep in time blocks of around 1.5 hours before waking up again, waiting with others in the cold for the next bus to arrive, and then sleeping for another short block or so while I could.
To put it bluntly, this can be a hellish and unnerving experience for anyone who isn’t accustomed to living on the streets. This was one of the first places where I regularly slept when I became homeless because I simply didn’t know where else to go or what to do when it was cold outside.
But this is a common experience for many homeless people in urban areas throughout the world. Since those first experiences on the Hotel 22 bus, I’ve been homeless in other cities and have had to repeat this method of attempting to sleep on public buses when necessary.
With that said, the following is just a brief account of things I’ve encountered when doing so, as well as what you can expect if you’re considering sleeping on buses to get off the streets.
Finding a Suitable Sleeping Position
When sleeping on a bus, there are a few different positions you can sleep in. The most obvious position that most people want or try to sleep in is by stretching themselves out on their backs across many sites.
Most of the time you won’t be able to do this because not only is it extremely rude to do so, but the driver will most likely become irritated and may kick you off the bus or even ban you from boarding next time.
When I slept on buses, I had two main positions that I would sleep in, depending on the driver and the bus. If I knew the bus wasn’t busy and there would always be empty seats available for other people, I’d put my backpack down on the seat next to me and lean over to where my stomach or torso was somewhat bent over to the side while sleeping.
So I’d be sleeping in the seat on the right, for example, but with my backpack resting on the seat on the left with my head on top of it. This is extremely uncomfortable as it puts pressure on your stomach muscles, but it’s the easiest way to sleep that I could find other than simply sprawling out on my back across multiple seats.
The benefit of sleeping this way is that it’s somewhat covert, so as long as you’re being considerate towards other passengers who might need an extra seat, you shouldn’t attract too much attention to yourself since the driver may not notice you if your head is below the top of the seat.
The other way I slept, which was much more common for me, was to sleep with my backpack in my lap and I’d simply have to put enough stuff inside it (i.e. sweaters and other clothing) so that I could lean forward and simply rest my head on top of the backpack.
I certainly didn’t like sleeping like this, but it’s the only choice I had most of the time due to living in a city with aggressive bus drivers and many people riding the same buses.
So like an animal living in the jungle, I adapted through these experiences and learned to sleep with my head and body leaning forward onto my backpack, which remained in my lap.
If my feet were clean enough to where I was sure they didn’t smell, such as in times when I had just visited a shelter and showered good and had clean socks, then I’d take my shoes off while on the bus in a discreet way and would put my shoes in my backpack to take up more space and make it more elevated. I would then pad this with clothing or my sweater on top, which helped convert the backpack into a makeshift pillow.
Dealing With Unsympathetic Drivers
The worst part about sleeping on buses is when you’re simply not able to because of unsympathetic drivers. Sometimes you can ride the same bus whenever it’s raining or cold out and have no problems doing so, until one night you encounter a different bus driver who doesn’t care about your situation and wants you to stay awake while on the bus for whatever reasons.
It’s understandable for them to do this if you’re being rude and occupying more than one seat to stretch out while other people are boarding the bus. However, sometimes a driver will simply have a personal problem or become irritated when they see you sleeping with your head against the window or on top of the backpack in your lap.
This happened to me in the form of the 522 bus in San Jose, California, circa-2011. I paid to ride the bus and boarded at a location known as the Eastridge Center Mall, as I planned to nap along the way to the final destination; the Palo Alto Transit Center.
The route normally took about 1-2 hours during the day and cost me about $1.75. Granted, there were some charities in the area that would sometimes provide free bus tokens to homeless people who needed to ride buses and didn’t have money or passes, but their locations were often too far for me to reach easily.
As soon as I put my backpack in my lap and rested my head down on it, the bus driver came to the seat I was sitting in, then banged a stick against the seat and yelled, “Wake up! No sleeping on my bus!”
This was, as you’d imagine, incredibly upsetting because he had no idea how difficult this situation was for me and how badly I needed just a little sleep in a safe and warm place, if even for just an hour or so.
I didn’t understand his callous reaction, as I was the only one on the bus at that time. It was very unlikely, even if others boarded at other stops, that my sleeping would affect anyone. The seat next to mine was empty and available to anyone who needed it.
So, needless to say, I had to stay awake and wasted my money each time I boarded this bus and found this particular driver was working that shift.
Understandably, you tend to feel like less of a person when these things happen. You’re being treated as a subhuman. If I wasn’t wearing my large sweater and didn’t have my backpack with me, would I have been treated in the same way? This thought crossed my mind, but I already knew the answer.
This type of occurrence didn’t happen to me very often, but I had talked to other homeless people who stated it had happened to them as well on some occasions. We were all very thankful for the Hotel 22 bus that traversed between the same two stations in San Jose and Palo Alto.
Unlike the bus I was on, the 22 bus was reliable in allowing the local homeless community to sleep the whole route without being harassed. Ah, good ole’ Hotel 22. The drivers on this particular route at the time should have received awards for empathy towards the needy.
Laws Regarding Sleeping on Buses
As for the legality of sleeping on buses, the laws vary between different countries, states, and cities. Most places do not have any laws specifically covering the act of sleeping on public transportation.
It’s still obviously a good idea to check your local laws regarding this, as the last thing you need just after a rude awakening is a trip to jail or a fine. If arrested or fined, the charges may possibly fall under some form of vagrancy laws in some jurisdictions.
In some cities, it’s illegal to sleep outside and there are particular laws about this, so someone may be charged under those types of laws as well.
However, even in places where there may be laws on the books regarding vagrancy or specifically sleeping laws, it’s virtually unheard of for people to be charged or fined with sleeping on public transport.
In the United States and the UK, if a driver objects to you sleeping on their bus, they will normally either wake you up or will ask you to step off the bus. There have been a few reported incidents of people being charged with crimes or fined for this around the world, but it’s extremely rare.
In Dubai, UAE, an American student was fined the equivalent of about $80 in 2011 for falling asleep on the Dubai Metro, the city’s public train. Other than this, there haven’t been many public reports of fines or arrests happening elsewhere simply for falling asleep or intentionally sleeping.
When people have to resort to sleeping on buses, it says a lot about a city’s ability to offer affordable housing and other opportunities to prevent homelessness. So arrests or fines for these types of actions only reflect poorly on the city’s governing officials, which can lead to negative publicity that they may want to avoid.
Ensure Physical Safety When Possible
In recent years, attacks on homeless people sleeping on the streets and at bus stations have increased. So, if you’re sleeping on a bus, there’s always the possibility that a complete stranger may try to attack you for no other reason other than the fact that you’re asleep, vulnerable, and homeless.
However, bus attacks on random people are somewhat rare, and this is probably because there is always a driver on the bus, as well as on-board cameras videotaping everything in most large cities. But this isn’t to say that incidents don’t happen.
In Silver Spring, Maryland in 2017, a man hopped onto a bus through the back door without paying a fare, then approached a homeless man on the bus and began yelling at him. He attempted to take things out of the homeless man’s pockets and eventually spat in his face. He then exited the bus when the driver and other passengers intervened. The homeless man didn’t know the passenger and it was believed to be completely random and unprovoked.
There have been many other scenarios where random people were assaulted by strangers on buses, but most of the time, the victims aren’t homeless. The main reason for this is simply because the general population that is not homeless greatly outnumbers the homeless population. So it’s only natural that you’d hear more reports about these things happening to non-homeless people.
However, as a homeless person who is using a bus to rest, you may be at an increased risk of danger simply because you’re an outlier and that attracts attention. This is why you should always try to be aware of any nearby threats when you’re homeless or on a bus. If you must sleep on a bus, try to think of a way that you can do so without leaving yourself too vulnerable.