Jadey's Family Bus Dream

Hello,
My name is Jade and I have a dream to eventually live in a bus with my family. The reason I want to do this is due to a couple of factors, the first one being the huge fear I have developed of becoming homeless as I've watched friends and other community members going though this experience since the pandemic has placed so much stress on the housing in our area for renters. I currently work in community services in emergency relief, and so I see first-hand what happens to people once they become homeless. It's like watching an ever escalating tragedy as people quickly lose their networks, their jobs, their friends and ultimately their mental health as their life becomes more and more chaotic. It breaks my heart seeing my clients facing this stuff and I really don't want that to happen to us. My partner works in disability and so with our level of income there is no way we can ever break into the property market the way it's going, either.

The other reason is that our family needs a huge reset. We are currently just mostly existing if I'm completely honest. My partner, Ashley, and I have spent the last few years healing from trauma and over the years we have developed some stubborn coping mechanisms in the form of internet and technology addiction that we just don't seem to be able to budge. We were able to kick drugs and alcohol from our trauma journeys, but not screens and hiding from the world. I have tried so many things to reset our way of being, but I'm exhausted from it and now and watching it happen to our youngest son now is too much to handle. I just think we need a bit of a shock and a forced reset to help us emerge from the last of our safety blankets. And I'm pinning my hopes on this happening if we go on this bus building journey together.

So for the next couple of years our aim is to renovate a bus we have bought, to the point where it is liveable for a family of three (one of which is a huge hairy 6 foot fella, and the 12 year old is getting just as hairy and tall!). This requires quite a few more expenses than we realised, with engineering being necessary for seatbelts and a roof raise too so the boys don't develop humpbacks, plus the drive shaft needs replacing which is $3000 alone. Which brings me to this fundraiser. We've had a few friends privately messaging us to offer help with funds, but we've refused up until this point because it felt weird and rude to take money from people. But after chatting some more, we realised it would actually be a huge help and it's "ok to ask for help" I always tell everyone else! So maybe I should take my own advice. So here we are. Please only give what you can, even 2 dollars is fabulous! And we thank you with all our hearts for caring and following this story so far.