Proposals submitted to Government for a new Emergency Housing Facility would allow for twice as many homeless people to benefit from its services than at the current facility on Marsh Lane.

Government has donated the Bishop Spencer School building on Glebe Road, Pembroke to the Salvation Army, imposing a nominal peppercorn rent on a long-term lease. However, the charity will likely be responsible for raising the estimated $500,000 needed for renovations.

The old school is three storeys high and comprises a total area of about 11,000 square feet – twice the size of the facility on Marsh Lane, which currently lies in a dilapidated state. All the social services offered by the current facility would be transferred to the new facility, which could take up to a year to open.

Home Affairs Minister Michael Fahy announced the plans to renovate the building in June 2014 and signed a six-month Memorandum of Understanding with the Salvation Army to examine the best way to proceed with the project.

Mr Fahy, along with Public Works Minister Craig Cannonier, whose ministry will be responsible for the project going forward, accompanied The Royal Gazette on a tour of the building last week.

Mr Fahy said: “The Salvation Army has had architects come in and they have done preliminary work. It is a big facility and it needs a lot of work so I suspect that they are going to have to raise a lot of money and I will personally help — we will keep pitching [to the private sector].

“The preference for us would not be to contribute further funds [for renovations] – we don’t have the kind of money to do it.”

Mr Cannonier added: “The key is that there is a social aspect and we are looking out for our people. The idea of a peppercorn rent is to say, look we don’t have the finances to fix this but we will give you the area and now you go ahead and do something with it to benefit the people of Bermuda.”

The school was built in the 1960s and was later repurposed as Government office space. The building is in a “fair” structural condition according to the government’s chief surveyor Chris Farrow, who estimated that it would cost $500,000 to renovate before any adaptations are made to transform it from office space to residential.

The new building has plenty of open rooms that can be sectioned off allowing residents to have more privacy than they currently do. The centre would be a co-ed facility and no decisions have been made about whether to section off residents with mental health and substance abuse issues. The proposals include a chapel, a large cafeteria and a hairdressing service using outside businesses.

The current facility costs about $600,000 to run annually and the Salvation Army’s business manager Sandra-Lee Burrows estimates that the proposed facility would take double that to run efficiently taking into account the additional residents and additional staff needed including security.

Government currently provides $500,000, which is split between seven different social service programmes. There is no private funding for the Emergency Housing Facility so $500,000 would need to be found either from Government or the private sector.

Asked whether any additional funds would be allocated to the Emergency Housing Facility going forward, Minister Fahy said he couldn’t pre-empt the Minister of Finance ahead of the budget, which will be announced on February 20.

The Salvation Army’s divisional commander Major Frank Pittman said: “Government haven’t said to us what they are going to do with regards to the operation of the programme and whether they are going to increase our funding. From our perspective we are in a limbo stage.

“We have presented a proposal we are just waiting on Government to respond and their response will determine if we are able to proceed or not.

“In the past year we have struggled financially our main campaign was down by about $200,000. Our Christmas appeal did reasonably well but not as well as we needed it to. As we approach year [end] in March 31 we are struggling because of the economy in Bermuda right now. We are struggling to operate what we have now.

“We will need commitment from Government for years to come. We can’t be left with a massive building that we are unable to fund.”