Gimme shelter

The existing 83-bed facility in Marsh Lane was built ÷ back in the 1970s ÷ to last about ten years.

On Tuesday night, 72 of the beds were occupied, 13 by women. Major ÎChuckâ Eyre, the SAâs executive director of community services, told us that the facility has ãgone below sub-standardä and that it is ãfar from an acceptable situation.ä

The SA has already held a meeting with one of its Canadian architects but neither it nor Government could say this week when they expected to see any physical development.

Homelessness is among Bermudaâs most pressing social concerns. Community activists argue some people are so desperate they sleep in junkyard cars and bushes. According to Major Eyre, however, the people who do that, do it out of choice.

The new facility will have the same capacity as the existing one, but with a new emphasis on treatment, educational and life-skill programmes. Housing Minister Nelson Bascome said too many residents use the existing facility as a permanent home, which was never its intention.

Plan

Mr. Bascome expects the architect and Works and Engineering to draw up a plan within the next couple of months.

Major Eyre said that, to his knowledge, the emergency housing complex has never turned anyone away. ãItâs a refuge for people with a variety of social, emotional and psychological problems,ä he said, adding about 13 residents are monitored by experts from St. Brendanâs Hospital. Residents have to vacate the facility at 8am and are not allowed back until 4.30pm, except in emergencies. The day care centre across the road, provides additional refuge.

Major Eyre said people who take to sleeping in tents in the bushes, some of whom can be found next door to Car World, which is just across the road from the emergency housing shelter, just donât like structure. ãThey want to do their own thing,ä he said.

Some shelter residents do have jobs, such as washing cars, and although the SA tries to get those who do have money to contribute rent, Major Eyre concedes that getting the cash can be like ãpulling teeth.ä

He added: ãTheyâre comfortable there; itâs a non-threatening environment· The condition of the shelter is as good as it can be under the circumstances. Each time something happens, when things fall off the wall, we put them back up.ä

In the last ten months the shelter has invested in, among other things, a $15,000 industrial washing machine; two washers and dryers for residents and a $2,000 fan for the kitchen.

Government and the SA are also mindful that demand for housing is about to increase with the closure of the Canadian Hotel in Reid Street, which provides low rent rooms for up to 55 single men. The hotelâs owner, Ted Powell, said: ãThe hotel is now closed and thereâs an application in planning to develop the site.ä

Mr. Powell said residents have been advised they have to find alternative accommodation. He declined to say whether they had to be out by a certain date.

Mr. Bascome said Government is addressing homelessness and drew attention to two Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) renovation projects in Union Street, which opened last year: One houses eight men, while the other has seven large rooms, which can accommodate a single mother and young child. The first was leased to the BHC by the Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU). Efforts are ongoing to find additional properties, he said.

The minister added that the difficulty for Government, is that while it must provide help to the homeless, it doesnât want to create a Îdependency culture.â ãQuite a few individuals have found the shelter very comfortable,ä he said, in effect making it their full-time home.

Mr. Bascome said he has no doubt that once the Canadian Hotel closes, ãpeople are going to be banging on the door looking for places to go.ä The BIU has land between Court Street and Union Street on which 30 units could be built, but requests for a $6 million interest free loan from the banks to the BHC last year were turned down. The BIUâs president, Derrick Burgess, said efforts continue to raise the money.

Mr. Bascome said the new emergency housing shelter will be built in the same vicinity as the existing one and that efforts will continue to be made to get Car World to clean up the area.

He said: ãIndividuals are using these cars to sleep in and thereâs a good deal of drug activity that goes on there.ä

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