Up to 350 people in Bermuda will be be spending Christmas Day without a roof over their head this year.

That was the shocking assessment from a Salvation Army worker who is trying to gauge the extent of the homeless crisis.

Community services worker Lionel Cann has spent the last six weeks seeking out people who are living rough, in an effort to find out how to help them in what is believed to be the first survey of its kind on the Island.

?What I am in the process of doing is determining where the homeless people are located and to get some history from them on how long they have been on the street, whether they have communication with their families and whether they are interested in going back to their families,? explained Mr. Cann. ?I?m trying to find out whether they are working or hustling ? information that might help us to help them.

?I know that a survey has been done to determine who is homeless in the past but the Salvation Army has never had access to that information. We estimate that there are 200-350 people across the Island and in Hamilton alone we deal with about 40 or 50.

?I?m trying to corroborate that figure and it?s taking me a while as sometimes people are reluctant to even let someone know that that they are hard done by.

?They are living in lots of places ? some are in cars and others are just sleeping rough. They go to public facilities or friends houses to wash and some do respectable work and you would not know that they are homeless.?

Mr. Cann, who participates in two of the thrice-weekly Salvation Army soup runs, said that he had already spoken with around a dozen people.

One of the people who is currently part of the estimated 250 to 350 people living without a home is Mitchell Watson.

Mr. Watson, who has started his own political organisation called the Poor People?s Party to campaign on this issue, welcomed news of the survey, but questioned how much good it will do.

?Bermuda is in a unique position. We have the economic resources and the human resources to deal with this issue but it?s not much of a concern to those who are already housed.

?The figure of 350 is not a surprise to me. In the old Holiday Inn/Club Med hotel building at St. George?s there are 60 to 70 people in dorms there, both men and women.

?In other places there are pockets of people in the bushes, and living in tents with their children. I don?t see that the government can be that concerned.

?The Salvation Army survey will help, but some people that are homeless are not going to want to come forward and expose themselves as being homeless as there is still a stigma attached to that in Bermuda. There is even a law about wandering abroad which makes it a criminal offence so you have to be careful about what you say.

?It?s a little ticklish so the Salvation Army will have trouble getting a true picture.?

Mr. Watson, who is staying in the St. George area, says he has been homeless since losing his position in a room-share said he can?t afford afford $1,800 rent on the $680 that he makes each week from his job in construction.

He praised the example set by the the Biological Station, where he has recently been to visit the prefabricated housing that was erected he said: ?They have put up 34 apartments in nine weeks, and the foreman of the job said it had only cost $125 per square foot. The most the staff are paying is $400 for a four-bedroom apartment,? he said.

He threw down the gauntlet to the Government to undertake a similar project.

Deputy Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley, has been helping provide those in need with food hampers at Christmas for several years both personally and through his company Dunkley?s Dairies.

He said that he news of the homeless problem further highlighted what he sees as a growing gap between the rich and poor on the Island.

?A friend of mine who is a school teacher and has a real caring heart goes out into the community with hampers we have put together to help the less fortunate. She delivered 14 of them yesterday,? he said.

?One of the things I have noticed over the past couple of years is a big gap that ?have? and the people that ?have not.? There are so many among us that can?t afford the necessities of life and are struggling to make ends meet.

?The Minister of Health has been promising a study of homelessness for the last three or four years and it has still not been provided by the government. ?