Bermuda Housing Corporation is renting out rooms for as little as $650 a month to foreign employees of a private security company.

The publicly-funded quango, which has a waiting list of more than 200 Bermudians seeking affordable housing, admitted to The Royal Gazette that it had been renting out the units to “security personnel” from a local company called GET Ltd.

The firm is owned by Bermudian Kevin Smith and his wife Terry and employs former Police Commissioner George Jackson and former Housing Minister David Burch.

GET held a contract with Government to run the Island’s network of closed-circuit television cameras until March this year, when it lost out in the tendering process to BAS-Serco.

The leasing agreement for the rooms at the former Harmony Club hotel in Paget is understood to have begun several years ago and is due to run out in September, when BHC general manager Barrett Dill said it would not be renewed.

He told this newspaper: “In conjunction with the Ministry of National Security, in the past, BHC has rented out rooms at the Harmony Club to overseas security personnel who were charged with serving and protecting Bermuda from serious crime and criminal acts.

“Those personnel included overseas police officers and private security officers who were responsible for monitoring the CCTV cameras installed throughout the Island. The monthly rent charged is $650 per unit.”

Major Dill confirmed that rooms at Harmony were still being rented out to three GET staff members, all of whom are work permit holders.

He said: “There are three GET people up at Harmony; we have a contract with them, a leasing agreement for when they were working along with the police for the CCTV.

“The thought was that for the CCTV to go up and the police to monitor them at the time, it was best to house them along with the police.

“Now that they have lost the contract, the situation is that we have a lease agreement with them up until September, at which time it will expire and will not be renewed.”

The BHC manager said about 220 clients were on the corporation’s current “wait list” seeking adequate accommodation but none have been offered housing at Harmony, though several units are empty.

“Harmony is one of a number of rooming houses that BHC manages,” said Major Dill. “We allocate rooms on a needs and availability basis. Harmony was, in the first instance, used for security personnel — overseas police and security personnel in charge of monitoring CCTV — with excess availability used for other BHC clients in need.

“We do have a waiting list for people needing housing. We have rooming houses throughout the Island. We have large rooming houses down at St David’s — Gulfstream and Langley House.”

Government bought the dormant Harmony Club in 2008 for $6.25 million to house overseas police recruits.

Lt Col Burch, Housing Minister at the time, said taking foreign police officers out of “direct competition” with Bermudians for studio or one-bedroom apartments would drive down single person rents in the rest of the market and free up more affordable housing for locals.

According to Bermuda Police Service, it currently rents 31 of the 42 residential units at Harmony Club. A spokesman said a few of those 31 rooms were vacant at the moment.

Other residential units on the site are used by the Ministry of National Security and there is also office space used by the Hustle Truck employment scheme. Paget Parish Council holds its meetings at Harmony Club.

BHC’s website states that its mission is to “promote accessibility to adequate and affordable housing and to promote home ownership for Bermudians”. It adds that its mantra is that: “Every Bermudian should reasonably expect to have a safe and adequate place in which to live.”

Mr Smith said he brought staff to the Island to work on the CCTV project during a period of heavy gun violence and it was felt Harmony Club would be a safe place for them to stay.

He said his company was offered the residential units to rent and did so for its guest workers in good faith, adding that he also offered to fix the dilapidated hall at Harmony so his firm could rent that space, but BHC rejected the idea.

“I guess at the time they had surplus rooms available,” he said. “It didn’t seem to be an issue and I don’t find that being actual news.”

He said GET installed CCTV cameras and tested them using its own funds for the “greater public good” long before being awarded a contract with Government in 2011.

The GET owner said Mr Jackson was chief operating officer of his company and Lt Col Burch was a consultant. Neither hold any shares in GET Ltd.

We asked Public Works Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin and Premier and National Security Minister Michael Dunkley for comment but neither responded by press time.