THE Salvation Army believes a long-term plan is needed if Bermuda is ever to come to grips with its homeless problem.

Salvation Army members have spent the past decade delivering "soup, soap and salvation" to anyone they find living on the streets.

The organisation was recently honoured for those efforts, but in an interview with the Mid-Ocean News, Divisional Commander Major Doug Lewis acknowledged more could be accomplished.

The Christian association's Feeding Programme currently assists around 80 of the island's estimated 400 homeless on a weekly basis. It has an annual cost of around $80,000, raised through charitable appeals and private donations, with most of the Salvation Army's efforts concentrated in Hamilton.

"The Salvation Army has always looked for those places in society where there are gaps in service for various reasons," Major Lewis explained.

"As we went through the years, we saw people on the street, people who were homeless for whatever reason ¿ and not being fed. (Volunteer) Lionel (Cann) has been doing this for just over ten years now and he knows these people. He's their friend. That's key.

"We don't just want to just give them soup and a sandwich but also develop that friendship. It's then they start to talk and that's when we start to find out what their real needs are, why they're on the street.

"The majority of people, I'd say 85 per cent, have some kind of mental health issue and that's because they fried their brain on cheap drugs or just abused themselves.

"So they're not totally able to comprehend what they need or what they don't need. In fact, they don't consider themselves homeless ¿ the box that they have, the bush that they live in, that's their home. They don't have the capacity to realise that there is something different."

Bermuda CableVision presented the Salvation Army ¿ and the Bermuda Conference of Seventh Day Adventists ¿ with a quarterly Community Service Award and $2,000 at a banquet held last week.

The Salvation Army was honoured for its Feeding Programme, today run out of a mobile canteen serving soup and sandwiches four nights a week, at its North Street facility, which offers a sit-down meal, five nights a week.

"We also do it sporadically in Somerset," said Major. Lewis.

"We're trying to expand that. Part of the problem ¿ although it's a very small part ¿ is getting somebody to commit a vehicle that we can use to go out and deliver the food. But that's what we're working on. And the reason we want to expand it is because they're not just (in Hamilton).

"The idea of the feeding programme was an opportunity to do something for these people, to at least keep them healthy ¿ that's the first step toward the 'soup, soap, salvation'. If we can get them fed, keep them nourished, then we can sit down with them when they're a little more receptive and say, 'Okay, what do you need, what can we do for you next, why are you in this type of situation?"

Asked whether there was an understanding that such persons would seek employment or help for their addictions, Major Lewis explained the food is offered without any expectation.

"Hopefully, there's a continuum of care," he stated. "That's the initial point of contact, the need that they have at that point.

"Our hope is to see if we can work them through a system. If they need addictions treatment can we send them to our Harbour Light programme, to another one of the Government agencies? If it's housing, what can we do through the emergency shelter and then through affordable housing? Eventually, over a period of time, we'd like to think that they're able to come back into society as contributing members of society.

"So there is an understanding to a certain extent, but most of them don't want to be what they consider 'institutionalised'. They don't want to live in a building with 50 other people that are all in a similar situation.

"They become reclusive, they want to stay on their own. So it's difficult to get them through that system. There is a certain segment that can comprehend. They're on hard times. They want help, but they don't know where to turn or how to go about it ¿ they're the people that we can more readily work through the system."

The Divisional Commander believes the next step is to take a census of the island's homeless population ¿ a move he believes will draw more attention to the severity of the problem Bermuda is facing.

"We started to do a survey," he explained. "It was quite a complex questionnaire asking, 'Why are you on the street? What level of education have you had? What jobs have you had? What assistance are you receiving?'

"But we only got a few dozen completed ¿ it was so time consuming it was taking forever. I think what we need to do, because there's so many different figures out there as to how many people are on the street, if we could somehow co-ordinate all the agencies and (assign each a certain area) and see how many they find, we could get the island covered. Then we'd have an actual number. But it's just a matter of coordinating all of that."

One of the difficulties in raising awareness is that the homeless have traditionally kept themselves well hidden, he added.

"I think that's the problem we, as one of the organisations and agencies that are involved in this, have in trying to sell that to the people that need to hear it.

"We don't see them so it can't be all that bad a problem, so it doesn't exist. It does. Myself, Lionel, our volunteers, we know where they hang out, where they hide in a sense. But because the Government officials, because the City fathers don't necessarily see them ¿ other than perhaps at the City Hall parking lot ¿ they don't realise how many there are.

"We have a sit-down meal that takes place at No. 10 North Street five nights a week ¿ Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We average approximately 50. Then, four nights a week ¿ Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday ¿ we have the mobile canteen that goes out.

"That usually is more along the soup and sandwich line but also as we have donations of goods that come in ¿ T-shirts, blankets and things like that ¿ we're able to give them out as well."

Asked what impact the programme has had on Bermuda, Major Lewis said in its absence "I think we would probably see more panhandling, per se. At least they're getting one square meal a day. Where do they eat the rest of the time or do they eat the rest of the time? Are they dependent on people giving them a few bucks to buy something and then if people do that will it be spent on food?

"We really don't know what they would be doing, obviously scrounging more than they're doing now, perhaps being more of a menace ¿ and I say that kindly, because we love these people ¿ but they would have to start coming out of the woodwork to survive.

"There's always a balance. Are we allowing them to live on the street, by enabling them, by feeding them so they don't have to get a job to get money to buy food? There's always a certain segment of the population that will criticise us for that ¿ well that's fair.

"If anything we would rather overcompensate and help somebody, than have somebody go without. So that's the tightrope we walk in trying to help people but at the same time get them into some type of assistance programme and that's where relationship building ¿ serving food on a regular basis with these individuals ¿ allows us to do that.

"In the November Throne Speech, there was nothing about the homeless. I'm eager to see if it's on the agenda (when Parliament reconvenes today). The situation can be changed, in the sense that we can offer education, teach prevention and develop long-range plans for the future."