BERMUDA has a housing crisis and it is at the heart of the island's social ills, according to Rosemarie Pedro.

She feels so passionate about the need to address the housing problem that six years ago, she founded the People's Coalition for Affordable Housing.

Ms Pedro has lobbied UBP and PLP administrations alike about the need to find a solution.

Her biggest concern is that children raised in inadequate housing will grow up frustrated and that will store up many problems for our community in the future.

She accepts that only a combined effort from all parties involved, from Government and landlords to contractors and exempt companies, has a chance of ensuring reasonably priced and adequate housing for all residents of Bermuda.

Photographer TONY CORDEIRO and reporter JONATHAN KENT sat down for a chat with Ms Pedro this week.

Q: How did the People's Coalition for Affordable Housing get started?

A: Probably about six years ago, there was a large amount of people who were struggling to find decent housing, living in overcrowded conditions. A lot of friends were talking to me about it and I was having problems myself with housing at the time.

I had met Sheelagh Cooper (chairman of the Coalition for the Protection of Children) and talked about it and Sheelagh thought I was an articulate person and should set up a coalition for people having similar types of problems.

Sheelagh had people coming through her doors talking about it and the problems related to children.

Q: So was it your own experience that inspired you to set up the coalition?

A: Yes. I'd say so. Because I could relate to what people were having difficulty with, it made it easier for me to speak for them. I understood exactly how they felt.

Q: What was your situation at the time?

A: I was staying in a house and was getting a housing allowance. I was supposed to be getting married and because my wedding banns had been published, they took away my housing allowance (the HAP plan). I'm not even married yet!

That was rather frustrating. You hardly need to say to your prospective husband, 'Look, you have to pay some of my rent because you want to marry me'.

That's not the best initiative to marry someone! They never notified me, they just stopped it. I heard lots of similar stories from other women. There were a lot of issues I could relate to.

Q: Who else was involved with the coalition?

A: It was just myself from the start. I would just call the media, say who I was and whom I represented, they would print it and it just grew from there. Now I have an assitant, Coreen Tucker, and the members are people having housing difficulties, often single parents.

Q: After six years, are the challenges of providing affordable housing available as great?

A: Yes. The population has grown considerably in many areas and I don't want to blame any one situation for another situation. When we look at issues we need to think about people's needs rather than just blaming.

Q: What are the reasons for the lack of affordable housing?

A: The misuse of housing, for one. We are small country and with the population that we have, we have people staying in three-bedroom houses, which to me is a misuse of a house. A family could better relate to a three-bedroom house.

I understand that most families who have three children could not afford the rents three-bedroom places are going for. We need some kind of rent control so these houses can be better utilised.

Then there is the greed factor. It plays a big part, especially landlords capitalising on foreign workers and exempt companies. It's easy to do.

I have a mortgage and I guess if I could rent out my house for five years and get my mortgage paid, I'd be tempted too. But I feel I have to do my civil duty to be fair. I think you have to be able to sleep at night. I wonder if some of the social ills we have right now are a result of what we fail to do for our own people.

Q: If someone can rent out their house for $5,000 a month, would you expect them to rent it out for less through social conscience?

A: Through social conscience, I'd say yes. Through a greed conscience, I'd say no.

Q: What's the solution to making housing more affordable?

A: I'd say rent control would be a big part of it. To not be allowed to rent out a house for more than so much per square foot. That would be fair right down the line. It wouldn't matter what economic status you had. You would not be paying more than a certain amount per square foot.

Q: How could that be done?

A: It would have to be done through Government.

Q: How do contractors affect the housing situation?

A: The cost of their work. We need to look at the cost of bringing in materials. We need to work with companies who would give a good deal if we used them a lot, not to charge the contractor so much for bringing them in. And then there is what is charged for labour.

Q: It sounds like a vicious circle.

A: It is. And the housing crisis is a social problem and that's how we need to look at it, and not economically. It needs a lot of people to come together. Government, contractors, labourers, learning institutes - we need everyone to sit around a table and work out a plan, so it's fair for everybody.

Q: How big is the housing problem and are we talking more about people without homes or people with inadquate homes?

A: If you ask that question to a Government official, they will tell you they don't have that big a list of people who are homeless. Ask them how many people are living in non-conducive living conditions, the answer would probably be a whole lot different.

That's the problem. As long as people see other people housed, they don't see it as a pressing issue. But it is a pressing issue, because we are suffering social ills because of the way people are living. I said that six years ago, and six years on, it's come to fruition.

Our youths are out there joining gangs and involved in violence and I am 75 per cent sure that is down to frustration, related to the way they've been brought up and their economic situation, leading to a certain amount of anger. They don't have the coping skills to deal with their situation. Some of them have lived in a crisis all their lives. When you live your life in crisis, it must be difficult to learn how to cope with every new crisis that comes along.

I see inadequate housing as a social ill. Often the parents have to be out working all the time. The family lifestyle breaks down. There is no one to talk to when I'm angry. There's no one to talk to when I have issues at school. And if there is someone at home, they trying to cook or clean or getting ready to go to their next job.

Q: So the high cost of housing is having some severe knock-on social effects?

A: I believe so. And sometimes when both parents are working, they still haven't got the things that children in the West are led to expect, through the media. Their expectations are much higher - and more expensive - today, because of what we see in the media.

And that can make children look mischievously into other ways of making money. There are people out there who are ready and able to corrupt them. And we'll always have those people, in any society.

Q: Many new international reinsurance companies have been set up in Bermuda in recent months. Does that trend concern you from a housing point of view?

A: In population terms, yes. I appreciate that they hire Bermudians and give them well-paying jobs. That is commendable. They didn't have to make that trade-off. They could have set up somewhere else.

But it's still concerning, because they are still bringing in people who have to be housed and they have a certain lifestyle they are accustomed to. You can't say, 'You can come to Bermuda to work, but you can't live how you're used to living, in a three-bedroom house and have two cars'. If we did that, we'd be living in a dictatorship.

But I think if they understood the dynamics of the island before they came, maybe they would appreciate the benefits of leading a basic lifestyle, nothing extravagant. Then maybe these houses that are so easily rented out to these sorts of people would not fetch such high rents and maybe they would become available to middle-class families.

Q: Do you speak with Government?

A:$> In the past I enjoyed an open-door relationship with the old UBP Government. That was very helpful, because we were able to relate to each other. At times I would be able to actually help a family who were in dire need. They appreciated that at times I could see things that the administrative side of their department could not see.

But today, it's not such an open-door relationship. And that is one of the biggest frustrations in running the coalition. If you can't have a rapport with the people who are directly involved, it makes it very difficult to make any headway. It's like banging your head against a wall.

Q: Have you called and asked for appointments?

A: At first I did. It was always a problem for one reason or another. The Cabinet was changing, and with all that's been going on at Bermuda Housing, there have been a lot of changes. And if you're not dealing with one person all the time, you have to go over things that you've already been over with someone else. So it makes it difficult to make progress if you're dealing with different people.

Q: Who have you managed to speak with?

A: I spoke with (former Housing Minister) Nelson Bascome and (sacked BHC general manager) Raymonde Dill. They would be prepared to show me their plan for housing and what their aim was. At least I had something to go away with.

A lot of times, their plans were very good for building up the housing stock. Whether or not they stick to the plan, that's another story. We would talk about plans and where they wanted to be in three months and six months, and maybe in three months I'd go back and see how they'd got on.

So really, the coalition is a sort of watchdog. And if plans are on schedule, then I can go back and say we don't have a lot to complain about.

All I can recommend to people is that they keep calling Housing and let them know they are still looking. Keep an open line of communication with them so that they have their name always there. Like any company, after a while your name will go into a file. Like when you apply for a job. If you don't constantly call the people, they'll just stick you in a file.

Q: What's your opinion of (Housing Minister) Senator Burch's policy of evicting BHC tenants who have been in serious arrears with their rent?

A: If I had to speak to Colonel Burch, I'd say to him, 'Where are you going to put these people and would it be conducive to a family home, because most of these people have children?'

Again I have to refer to what some youths are doing today through frustration and ask, 'Aren't we building an even bigger mountain than the one we're already dealing with?'

You've got to be careful with families with children, because you don't know how those children are thinking, how much they are holding in, how much is building up and what the end result will be because of all that. You don't want to add more problems to what we have. If we create more of it, it's going to be disastrous for Bermuda.

Q: Where do people go after being evicted by the BHC?

A: $>There's probably no chance for them to rent anywhere else. If they can't manage BHC rents - which are often very fair and they often give people a chance to make amends, the BHC are very reasonable - then it's clear they can't plan their finances.

Some people aren't equipped. Not all of us are rocket scientists, doctors or accountants. Some people have never been taught about about financial planning.

I was taught. My mother would never dream of putting dinner on the table if the rent wasn't paid. It just depends how people think and how they've been brought up.

Q: So how would you deal with a tenant who had fallen well behind with the rent?

A:$> Well, first of all I'd bring them in and talk about it. We'd write it all down, a lot of these people just need to be shown how. We'd go through it, just like an accountant would with an investor. What you make, what your expenses are, how much should be allocated to this and that.

International standards say that you should not be spending more than a third of your income on accommodation. If you pay more than that you're supposed to be on the poverty line and if you pay excesively more, then you're living below the poverty line. People working 40 hours a week should not be on the poverty line.

We don't have a standard wage situation. I remember going for a job interview and I was offered $10 an hour. I could earn that at when I was 16, I'm 40-something now. When you look at it from that perspective, we have grown economically, but those working in a lot of areas suffer to the degree that they can't pay their bills.

But that's often because the businesses' overheads mean that's all they can pay. So we have to look at why the small businesses have suffered so much that they can only pay what they were paying 20 years ago. Our rents are probably five times as much as they used to be.

The people not doing executive jobs are often not doing well. But the executives rely on those people to make their day go by easier. Those people are doing us a service and they should not have to be unable to pay their rent.

There's not a worse feeling than working 40 hours a week and still having to go and ask the Government for money.

Q: Do you have children?

A: Yes, I have four. I'm no different to many single parents. I work very hard to keep my kids focused. I do look forward to my Fridays, that's my social night, because by then, I'm 'children-ed out'.

Q: Do you have time to do a job?

A: Yes, I work. I was doing sales, but I've jst come out of that job.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: I love to socialise. And I love to run. Three times a week, three miles. That's the time for me. I don't want to run with anyone. I love camping. I love going to the beach with the kids. We pack the car up and go for the whole day, sometimes more than a day, when we take our tents.