A tragedy waiting to happen
Sen. Spence Farmer, who has visited the site regularly in recent months, said that about 40 rooms in two blocks of former staff quarters were being lived in.
Seniors and families with young children are among the inhabitants. The buildings have been a popular location for squatters for several years, although the number of occupants has shot up in recent months.
She said that, with only one power source available, residents were forced to hook up a dangerous chain of extension cables to deliver electricity to other rooms of the derelict property.
And with no running water available — occupants use buckets to collect water from a nearby storage tank — Sen. Spence Farmer said the site is a recipe for disaster as any blaze could rapidly spread throughout the building.
The Opposition Senator claimed housing officials do not want to evict the squatters out of the Government-owned former hotel because all emergency housing stock is full and there is nowhere else for them to stay.
According to Sen.Spence Farmer, Government does not want the building condemned for the same reason — but at the same time it is refusing to provide any kind of assistance to the dwellers because it does not want to condone the illegal occupation.
She said residents were sent a letter from the Bermuda Housing Corporation last year confirming that they would not be evicted — yet Government was doing nothing to ensure that the property was safe because, officially, it is unoccupied.
“They are effectively giving them permission to stay in a health hazard but are not willing to take any responsibility for the building — that would be a recognition of the fact that people are there,” Sen. Spence Farmer said.
“If Government is giving them permission to stay, then they should do something to make the place habitable, but if they don’t want people to live there, they shouldn’t let them. To allow them to stay in a building that should be condemned as a fire hazard is just unconscionable.
“I don’t want to believe that Government thinks it is okay for these people to stay there but the reality is there is nowhere else for these people to go. Just the other week the Housing Minister said that all emergency housing was full to capacity — resources are stretched to maximum.”
Housing Minister David Burch has previously admitted that the occupants are trespassing but have not been ordered to leave, while residents claim they are never disturbed by visits from housing officials, despite the fact that they are staying at the hotel illegally.
“The Fire Department hasn’t been over to check the place out,” Sen. Spence Farmer said.
“If they did so, it would be shut down. But then what would Government do?”
Sen. Spence Farmer likened the current situation to last year’s enforced closure of the privately-owned Canadian Hotel in Hamilton. That building was condemned as a fire hazard and ordered to close in 2002 by Government officials.
Around 60 residents, paying a nominal rent, faced living on the street — but were allowed to stay on for a further four years because Government subsequently failed to enforce its own shutdown order.
The occupants were eventually forced out last year after their landlord, Ted Powell, was unable to get the property insured. Mr. Powell suggested at the time that Government intentionally failed to take any action because there was nowhere else for his tenants to go.
Yesterday, Sen. Spence Farmer said Government’s failure to acknowledge the current fiasco exposed a lack of a housing plan.
“We need to set up a crisis centre because that’s where we are now — in a crisis,” she said.
“But Government doesn’t have any plan. These people have been told to register with the Bermuda Housing Corporation but a lot of them registered years ago, and Government knows that. The housing situation has been left too long and now it’s moved to another level.
“Government could try and help these people. They should be commended because they have skills and are willing to fix the place up. It could become a model for other facilities. But Government is not prepared to work with them and it’s embarrassing to see fellow Bermudians living in such conditions.”
Fellow Senator and St. George’s resident Kim Swan backed up his colleague’s claims, saying that Government had been forced to ignore the situation.
“There are a number of problems stemming from basic Government neglect,” he said.
“Government is wilfully turning a blind eye to the problem, which is only contributing to its escalation.
“We have been saying for too long that this situation is critical. Just look at the Canadian Hotel situation — it took an 11th-hour crisis for Government to react. The Club Med residents need to be relocated but Government has just cast them to the wind.”
Yesterday, Bermuda Housing Corporation representative Barrett Dill said: “BHC has visited Club Med and has implored people to sign up with us. We are feverishly working on solutions to the problem at hand and an announcement is imminent.”
