Extreme disappointment was the general tone of housing activist Rosemarie Pedro as she spoke to The Royal Gazette after the Budget debate on the Health Ministry revealed that Government do not have sufficient financing in place to cover the cost of building promised homes.

"It's kind of upsetting and very disappointing because housing was one of their biggest platforms,'' Ms Pedro, spokesperson for the Coalition on Affordable Housing, said.

"People in this country are really stressed out economically and they are pushing people to the edge.'' Pessimistic about progress, Ms Pedro said that the number of people in dire need of housing today has almost doubled since the election.

"I think people are urgently in need of adequate and affordable housing,'' she said.

"We are in even more of a crisis now than we were before the election and it is increasing. The numbers are almost two-fold now.

"The Bermuda Housing Corporation have 130 emergency cases,'' she said, "and I don't believe the Minister has housed all the 80 that were there before.

It's just impossible that he could have. Most of those will be the same people from last year.'' And Ms Pedro was insistent that Government has not placed housing as a top priority.

"They had said that they would help to ensure that people would not have to pay more than 30 percent of their income on rents,'' she said.

"I would have expected for them to have prioritised housing and to have allocated sufficient money to cover the cost. I don't know where their focus is.

"I know that there are 300 derelict buildings in Bermuda, that Government is in negotiations with 60, but only 6 are completed.

"They need to apply themselves a little more than they have done. They do have some great initiatives and I know that they would love to be seen as diligently working to solve the problem, but this kind of budget doesn't quite represent that.'' Ms Pedro also held that the resulting problem of overcrowding presents even more hardship for Bermudians and the community at large.

"The problem situation is causing people who are in abusive relationships to continue because they have no where to go, children are exhibiting aggression while others are repressing feelings of regression,'' she said.

"Many parents are forced to bring their children up in drug infested areas and as it is clear we don't have a grip on the drug problem, the situation is really bad.

"More stringent laws especially trespass laws would help or else more kids are just going to fall into the drug world.

"Many parents and families are stretched economically and if they have to pay high rents, it means less and or inadequate food.

"Housing is a basic human need and it should be a right.'' The Bermuda Housing Corporation received an increase of $461,000 in the Budget this year.

The money to be used to help fund the `100 homes' project, the private sector rentals programme and the vacant and derelict programme.