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The recently opened Manukau bus station in New Zealand also served as a homeless shelter at night. As part of a trial, homeless individuals were given a mattress as well as dinner and breakfast. The shelter was open during the coldest part of the New Zealand winter, and was jointly run by Auckland Transport, the Auckland city council, and the Salvation Army. Although the shelter shut down one week early due to volunteers’ scheduling conflicts, the trial’s results are currently being analyzed.

This initiative was submitted by our New Zealand-based tw:in member Paul Dobbin, who shared his perspective: “The way these organizers looked at the station's potential not as a transport hub but as a weatherproof structure was innovative. It allowed them to effectively repurpose a wasted resource (a closed or unused bus station is a waste product of its daytime function) without detracting from or devaluing the station's primary use. The scope of the potential from a widespread application of this idea is exciting - imagine if all infrastructure was required to provide service to the community! We would get an exponential increase in value from civic spending.”

We couldn’t agree more, this is a perfect example of our CAPACITY CAPTURE trend! The Manukau bus station proves that creating positive social impact doesn’t necessarily require all-new resources. And using what you already have can help save valuable time when tackling an urgent need. Look at your existing infrastructure: where is it underutilized? And can you think of creative or low-cost ways to unlock its surplus capacity in order to deliver wider social benefit?


You spoke, and we listened: over 90% of you who fed back about the new Innovation of the Day format said it’s a hit: so we’ll be sticking with it for the foreseeable future. Many thanks to everyone who took the time to write in – we’re always so happy to hear you love our daily innovations as much as we do!