lands, especially Southside, into an income producing area seems to come in for criticism no matter what it does. Some of that stems, in our view, from the mistake of preventing groups concerned over housing from viewing the housing, good and bad, at Southside. That allowed the criticism that "Government'' had housing at Southside which it would not allow those in need to occupy.

Now it is criticised for renovating 54 individual three-bedroom homes at Southside in order to sell them, with priority given to first time home owners. Given house prices in Bermuda, these houses are reasonably priced even for long lease property. They are also being sold with the advantages of low down payments and long term mortgages.

There is a long history of Bermudians wanting to own their own homes which is coupled with a public awareness that private ownership generally leads to better neighbourhoods and better maintenance of the properties. That has already been demonstrated in Bermuda.

The fact is that, as these 54 homes are occupied, dwellings will become available, perhaps not 54 because some buyers will have been living with others. But homes will become available without building new houses on new land.

Solutions to the housing problem are not easy. There is high demand from people who have recently arrived in Bermuda and they can often pay rents which Bermudians are not accustomed to. Yet, given the extraordinary cost of building in Bermuda, rents are not out of line. If we want people from overseas to make contributions to Bermuda's booming economy and to keep the international company sector operating smoothly, then they have to have somewhere to live.

Landlords are often accused of rent gouging, especially when renting older houses which are already paid for to non-Bermudians. They reply that their maintenance costs are very high and that no private individual in Bermuda today can afford to be in the low rental business. That is also true.

Some housing difficulty arises because there are private owners who will not rent cottages or apartments because they are frightened of tenants they cannot control or of being unable to move out a tenant who does not pay or becomes a nuisance. Those landlords buy protection by refusing to rent. Solving that situation is almost impossible even though this keeps some 100 to 200 dwellings out of the rental market.

Providing housing cannot be achieved in a hurry but Bermuda does know the number of people coming in to work and thus can estimate their demands. We should also know fairly accurately the number of Bermudians in need of housing and the number of new or renovated houses Bermuda needs each year. The figures will never be perfect but at least we could aim to satisfy the demand.

Right now we are moving in a good direction. We should turn existing houses which are not occupied into fresh housing. It is difficult to believe that owners would not want abandoned houses occupied given today's values and today's rents. That should be the first step rather than, so to speak, breaking new ground.

The important thing is that a great deal of effort and thought is going into housing which should produce results.