A day centre for Hamilton’s homeless with showers and other services could be on the cards.

Dwayne Caines, the chief operating officer of the City of Hamilton, said the authority was looking for a building where the homeless could clean up, charge phones, and meet representatives from support agencies.

But he warned: “There’s no quick fix. It’s going to be a long, hard, dedicated slog for us all.”

Mr Caines was speaking at a forum on homelessness, held at the Bermuda National Library on Thursday night, which included representatives of social service agencies and homeless people.

Mr Caines told the meeting that there were about 100 people sleeping rough in the city, but that there were “100 to 150 more that you do not see in various sites”.

He added: “We got a lot of helping agencies and charities together, and we have been in a think-tank for four months.”

The library invited guests for a screening of the 2018 film The Public, where the homeless occupy a public library in freezing weather.

A 52-year-old homeless man said afterwards: “My life was never like this. I travelled every year. I worked in the nursing profession for years until I stumbled into addiction.”

The man said that addicts out on the street had to wait three to six months before they could get a place on a detox programme.

He added: “I am a good man inside. I know that. Most of us are at the core. What I have seen is the look of pain and shame from my peers and family members because I have descended in their eyes.”

Another homeless man, who asked to be called John, broke into tears as he told the meeting: “It’s too much of a pain to know there’s not enough resources out here to help those in my position.”

He said he had been homeless since he was 15 or 16 years old.

Mr Caines told him: “There, but for the grace of God, go us.”

He said he had witnessed the country’s “epidemic” of people sleeping rough since he started work in City Hall.

Mr Caines said addiction, mental illness and childhood trauma that had never been dealt with had caused much of the problem.

He added that City Hall planned to produce a guide for the homeless to “tell people where the

resources are”.

Other people in the 75-strong audience included Elaine Butterfield, the executive director of the Women’s Resource Centre, who gave updates on the Transformational Living Centre for Families in Pembroke, expected to open this year.

Ms Butterfield said she had never seen so many homeless families. She added: “It’s not just women. It’s women with children. It could be women with their entire family living in a car.”

Ms Butterfield said that homeless families were “not always apparent” because some moved from home to home, staying with friends.

She added: “The trauma for these families and the children have — it’s really shameful.”

One man said that because of the island’s high cost of living, the “poverty line” was $18 an hour.

He added: “Ask any family. The husband and wife make $75,000 each. They have a car, mortgage, children in private school. Ask them how they’re making out on $150,000 a year.

“They’re barely getting by. Now image a family trying to get by on $55,000 a year, or a single mother on $35,000. You just can’t make it.”

He suggested payments should be offered to families to take in their homeless relatives.

Pc Arthur Dill, the Pembroke parish constable, said he worked with “anybody and everybody” to connect people on the street with the resources that they needed.

Mr Dill suggested each of the island’s churches should adopt a homeless person.

He said: “That’s just thinking outside the box. But it’s possible.”

Other suggestions were to emulate Kiva, the online site connecting donors with entrepreneurs in the developing world, or to use cryptocurrency donations for the homeless so they could buy essentials.

A library spokeswoman said the event designed to have “key stakeholders present to participate in an active conversation to discuss possible solutions”.

The library also provided food and care packages to homeless people at the meeting.