A housing solution?

17 December 2002

Dear Sir,

With many exempted companies paying their employees housing allowances of $5,000 a month and upwards (in some case a long way upwards) is it any surprise that the Bermuda housing market is in the mess that it is? That amount of money being pumped into an already tight market can only result in disaster, and it has. Those with the housing allowances can afford to pay the astronomical rents but the problem is that such allowances have wrecked the market for everybody, including those with very limited resources.

Some suggestions have already been made as to how the housing crisis can be alleviated, e.g. encouraging exempted companies to finance the development of more housing. Whereas this is a good suggestion it can only have limited application due to the small amount of land left to develop. I therefore believe that it will take several different initiatives, all with the same aim to make a significant impact. Allow me to add another suggestion.

Why not make it a condition of new work permits for single exempted company employees that they live in hotels for say, the first three years. A standard rate of perhaps $100 per night could be mandated with no services included except laundering of linen. Whereas hotels could not survive if they offered all their rooms at this rate, I am sure that some would jump at the chance of having perhaps ten percent of their rooms occupied at this rate on a 365 days per year basis.

A spin off for hotels could be additional sums spent in bars and restaurants, again at a discounted rate for their "semi-permanent" residents and their friends/visitors. Even the exempt companies would benefit, as the monthly rent would only be $3,000 instead of $5,000 and up.

To continue on the present course, whereby many Bermudians are paying an ever-increasing percentage of their wages just to keep a roof over their heads, can only result in severe social problems, the like of which this Island has never seen before. Besides don't our people deserve better!. In the fullness of time I believe that we will realise that the presence of international companies is of no value if they cause hardship to more of our people than they benefit. Is this not currently the case ?

SEEING THE REAL PICTURE

Hamilton Parish

P.s. I understand that the banks are now renting condo's at $4,000-plus per month to house their foreign employees.

Get your facts straight

November 25, 2002

Dear Sir,

There are many things that the Creator has allowed me to do in life, which have given me great satisfaction, and I give thanks for each of those Blessings, not the least of which has been the 16 years survival of cancer.

Even with that Great Blessing, I will have to say that second only to the birth of my children, being allowed to live to play a role in the truly spiritual process of the "Reconnection" has to be one that has given me more satisfaction than anything else in my 66 years. What began as a research mission with a spiritual component, become instead a spiritual mission, with a research component, as the Creator, who plans all things, had ordained, in fulfilment of our ancient prophecies.

Consulting with Romana Peters, a very important member of our New England Indian Delegation, before we left, the decision was made to go to the place of sacred council fires, at Dark Bottom, to hold a ceremony of reconnecting with the spirits of our ancestors who began that custom in St. David's, many years past, seeking guidance, strength, and direction. The members of the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Pequot Tribes, I had symbolically selected for the Reconnection, and the 30 other Indians with the Mystic River Drums, joined hands in the two circles that became one at the sacred place that represents both the past and the future of the St. David's Island Indian Community. These long awaited prayers from the very depths of our souls, were answered in the five wonderful days we were blessed with, along with our St. David's relatives.

The powers of the spirits of our great leaders, Sassacus, King Philip, Massasoit and Canonchet, were all there for us, helping us along the way. Many of the questions I came with I thought might have answers for them in the Bermuda Archieves, but I have found instead, these answers were with our people in St. David's. I found many answers in their hearts, in their eyes, in the spirit of love that overflowed, - in their hands that were held in mine, in their voices, in their great strength, transcending many generations, connecting them to our father's fathers.

When other researchers came, as they do in all of our Indian communities, to "suck out" all the information they can, for their own reasons, and to re-enforce their pre-conceived notions as the self-proclaimed 'Indian Experts', they cannot see through the eyes of 'Ninuock', - (the human beings), so they perform their academic autopsy on our cultural bodies and "confirm our cultural death" for their peers and enjoy their lucrative profits from their books, and they make their very personal contributions to the 500 years of misconceptions began by Columbus! Handicapped by these notions, they are unable to see the traditions and values that have survived and totally underestimated the value of what our people have worked so hard to preserve, and reserve the sole 'right', as 'experts', to define what is tradition and history in their own analytical and sterile terms.

The visual documentation alone, that I expected on my very first visit was so completely overwhelming as confirmation of just how premature the "cultural autopsies" performed on our wonderful relatives on St. David's Island were. Instead of rushing to pounce their cultural survival, as our own people, dead, I raise my hands and voice with theirs in triumph celebration of their survival as our missing relatives because we fully understand an appreciate the struggle. We are not simply observers, as non-Indians are, but participants in our story! The last person we need to tell our story "now, (once again) for the first time", and to tell us who we are in someone who does not even know who he is!

Before fantasising about teaching others, it is essential that Mr. Rabito learn that trying to appropriate an Indian identity in order to sell books or posing like a stereotypical "post card Indian", does not validate an unfounded Indian claim. The Creator allows our ancestors, alone, to make us who we are! It has never ceased to amaze me how people who can study us for so long, can understand and respect us so little! Speaking of "getting facts straight", no one legitmately connected with our reconnection celebration, to my knowledge, ever excluded the presence of any other Indian tribes in the ancestry of St. David's Islanders. Only Mr. Rabito, in his compulsive desire to criticise and condemn a beautiful process he could never have a part in, saw it necessary to travel all the way to Bermuda to insist on press coverage for all his negative, dysfunctional views on an occasion of beauty and deep historical significance that all Bermuda seems to celebrate with us. The Reconnection was a totally spiritual, extremely positive experience and Mr. Rabito's disconnection was a totally nonspiritual negative experience. It is written "Ye Shall Know Them By Their Fruits!"

There are lessons to be learned from all that the Creator sends to us. Whether or not we learn any of those lessons, has to do with the choices we make in our life. We each have been blessed with our own special gifts from the Creator. I sincerely believe that true happiness an only come from using those gifts in the way He intended, to help make this a better world. If we, mistakenly think those gifts are to be used simply to become rich or famous or to satisfy some lust for power, then we waste an entire lifetime. The Reconnection was a truly sincere, extremely dedicated effort by all of us involved to use our God-given gifts in the way He intended.

Because we shared the same dream, I am so very pleased that Christine Lugo lived to see this process of Reconnection begin and left us with the knowledge that it will continue. The long overdue bridge between our people in New England and our Bermuda relatives will continue to be built right over any feeble criticism from those dysfunctional few who are unable to appreciate and respect our survival! The prophecies are now being fulfilled!

"Niy'ayo!" - (It is so!)

TALL OAK - MASHANTUCKETT PEQUOT AND WAMPANOAG

Chalestown, Rhode Island