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T was Health and Family Services Minister Patrice Minors who was given the task of breaking "the unfortunate news".

With Col. Burch at her side during a Cabinet press conference last Wednesday, Mrs. Minors explained that the Canadian Hotel was to finally shut down after providing low-cost accommodation in Hamilton for decades.

The Minister began by paying tribute to hotel owner Ted Powell who "has provided a valuable service to this community by making the facility available as a boarding house for about 56 men".

Mrs. Minors went on to say that, after being told by Mr. Powell last month that the hotel faced imminent closure, "Government has held numerous meetings to try to find a way to ensure that the facility could stay open".

"The owner of the hotel met with staff of the Ministry of Health and Family Services, the Department of Planning, the Bermuda Fire Service and the Ministry of Works & Engineering and Housing for the purpose of trying to remedy the situation," Mrs. Minors told reporters.

But despite Government's best efforts the emergency meetings came to nought and with nobody prepared to insure the building, the business could not remain open.

"The result is that the men who are staying at the hotel will have to find another place to live," Mrs. Minors said.

"I understand that Mr. Powell met with the tenants last night to share the unfortunate news."

At this point Housing Minister Burch took control of the podium from his Cabinet colleague. The former Regiment commander, known by at least some within Government as the man who gets things done, wasted no time outlining his short-term plan for the residents.

A property on the former US annexe at Southside had already been earmarked as a suitable replacement home, he said, and work on getting two floors of the facility in habitable condition was under way.

Should the February 28 deadline not be met, an even shorter-term alternative was available, with tenants likely to stay in soldiers' quarters at Warwick Camp. In the long term, a permanent home will be provided for the tenants once Government's $28-million new homeless shelter is built.

The impression that the two Ministers presented was one of calm competence and compassion. Handed a sudden crisis, Government had moved quickly to produce workable long-term, short-term and back-up plans, successfully reducing the impact of the previously unforeseen calamity.

But, regardless of how effectively Government reacted to the impending closure, the Canadian Hotel tenants would have been better served had its closure been anticipated ? something that some claim was not difficult to do.

The fact is the hotel has been living on borrowed time for the past eight years, and it was Government that signed one of the first death warrants.

In the days before international business, when Hamilton was a residential town rather than a corporate city, boarding houses were a familiar aspect of the landscape. But by the time businessman Ted Powell bought the Canadian Hotel "bit by bit" in the early 1980s, their numbers were dwindling.

Mr. Powell told the : "The Imperial Hotel, which used to be on the corner where the Gibbons building is, used to have 30 or 40 rooms.

"There used to be another one on Court Street called the Bristol Hotel, and many others. I personally stayed in one that is the Bermudiana Arcade when I was a kid ? my mother, my brother and I. That was another rooming house that disappeared. The demand was growing for this type of accommodation and the availability was shrinking.

"Upon purchasing the property and realising the need for this type of accommodation, I got busy to upgrade it somewhat. It's ironic that Planning gave me permission to put in external reinforced concrete staircases in as opposed to wooden internal staircases. That was in 1985 and they never questioned the safety of the building then. And I took it upon myself to put other safety features in there because I was concerned for everyone that was in there. This went on for a number of years.

"There is a large segment of the working population that do not want apartments. The guys in this property have a microwave in their rooms and maybe a refrigerator, communal toilets and they're happy with it. They don't see it as emergency housing ? they want a rooming house. That's why I have had tenants there for as long as 20 years.

"What we provide them with is hot and cold running water, toilet tissue, light bulbs, linens done once a week if they so choose, all for less than $20 a day. We try to maintain the premises to a habitable level. I openly admit it wasn't always the best but generally 99 per cent of the individuals were happy to be here."

other person aware of the essential service Mr. Powell provided was Nelson Bascome. A social worker in Government's Social Services Department during the late 1980s, Mr. Bascome held several meetings with Mr. Powell after being appointed Health and Social Services Minister in November 1998.

By this time, Government's Department of Planning began expressing concern at the safety aspects of the Reid Street property. Documents suggest that officials contacted Mr. Powell as early as March 1998, and the building was inspected by fire officers in the summer of 2001.

Then, in January 2002, Acting Director of Planning Nicky Gurret informed Mr. Powell that, because the building was unsafe, the hotel would have to close.

In a letter to the businessman, Ms Gurret said: "They were inspected with regards to a follow-up visit from two previous letters sent to yourself requesting certain works to be carried out. The five points raised by my letter dated 23rd May 2001 and a similar letter dated 3rd March 1998 by my predecessor have never been addressed satisfactorily."

After listing a series of potential fire hazards, Ms Gurret continued: "The fact that you provide the community with a boarding house very much in demand presently cannot overshadow the general safety and welfare of the occupants.

"Therefore, as the authority having jurisdiction under A101.3 of the 1998 Bermuda Building Code, I am informing you that the premises above, except for the shops and restaurant at grade level that lead directly onto Reid Street, be vacated and closed by February 4th 2002 as the premises has been deemed unsafe for occupancy."

investing his own money into improving the property over the years, Mr. Powell was not prepared to pour more cash into the concern. Left with no choice, his response to Ms Gurret's order was swift.

"To comply with that request I had every tenant sign a memo that they had been given notice and had been requested to move ? to go to the Bermuda Housing Corporation for new accommodation," he said. "But very few moved and so I continued providing accommodation to those individuals because I was opposed to them staying on the street ? I told everyone to get out but I wasn't going to evict them. With the housing situation I wasn't going to put them on the street. Those guys are almost family to me."

A second letter contained in the Planning Department's dossier on the property shows that officials then took legal advice on how to get the building shut down.

At the end of January 2002, Senior Crown Counsel Philip Holder of the Attorney General's Chambers, wrote to Ms Gurret "following a conference on the matter".

Mr. Holder advised that Planning's original directive to Mr. Powell was not "an acceptable notice at law" as it was not signed by the Minister.

Mr. Holder added: "The Minister would need some very cogent evidence put before him before he could make a decision whether or not to sign the notice and have it served on the owner."

Following this lukewarm legal advice it would appear the Planning Department took no further action, even though Mr. Holder hinted that the building might be violating regulations under the Structural Engineering Section of the Works and Engineering Code and a shutdown order could be enforced through that route. Planning officials also forgot to inform Mr. Powell that their original order was not legally binding.

Why did Planning officials, aware that the building was "unsafe for occupancy", fail to take further action? It's a question that Mr. Powell cannot answer.

"I have no idea ? you will have to talk to Planning about that," he said. "But I did meet with Mr. Bascome in 2002 and evidently there was some talk of getting an extension to the February 4 closure deadline.

"But after that, nothing appeared to have been done. No action was taken by Planning, there was nowhere else for these people to go and as I said, I wasn't prepared to evict them.

"Basically, I just put it to Government that there's a dilemma where there's nothing available for these men to move in to. Check with the letters in Planning but there was no response to me ? we never got any information." There is further evidence that the boarding house was living on borrowed time when, in May 2002, Mr. Powell submitted plans for the building to be knocked down and replaced with office and retail space. That plan was approved by the Planning Department in February 2003 and last year permission was extended until February 2007.

But while his tenants are still living in his property, Mr. Powell has allowed those plans to remain on the back burner. It was an arrangement Government seemed happy to live with too, despite civil servant concerns over safety.

Mr. Powell's main concern was the welfare of his tenants. Before submitting his proposal for the hotel to be converted into office space, the businessman had already set in motion plans to erect an alternative home for residents.

"In 2001, I made an application to construct a rooming house of 72 rooms on Union Street north," he said.

"This would have helped the whole housing situation generally. I had plans done by a local architect, drawings done. Then one of the individuals in Planning felt that they wanted to redesign the building. There were some objections and they wanted to reduce the number of rooms to 32 or 34 which didn't warrant the price of the property. So I just got my deposit back on the property and said I'll leave it to those who are in the housing system to work it out." That scheme was "worked out" by the Bermuda Housing Corporation in February 2002, just weeks after it was revealed that the Canadian Hotel had been ordered to shut down.

BHC general manager Raymonde Dill said finance had been found for the new multi-storey unit on a Bermuda Industrial Union car park. The project, consisting of up to 75 rooms, was to be run by the Corporation on a long-term lease and would cater mainly for single men.

month later, in March 2002, the exposed massive corruption and inefficiency at the Government quango. Mr. Dill was subsequently fired from his post while Mr. Bascome stepped down as Health & Social Services Minister.

"I was involved in discussions with the Housing Corporation and Raymonde Dill and others to assist in whatever way I could assist," Mr. Powell said.

"But, well, I won't go into my thoughts on what they had in mind there. What happened to that plan? Well what happened to the Housing Corporation?"

And so the climate of uncertainty dragged on. In August 2004, the Canadian Hotel was still facing "imminent closure", even though nobody in Government appeared willing to carry out the coup de grace.

That was when new BHC deputy chairman Col. Burch announced the quango was once more in the early stages of a plan to build an apartment block in the City of Hamilton. Col. Burch said the plan was in the hands of Housing Minister Ashfield DeVent and was awaiting Cabinet approval. Col. Burch added that the BHC was in an advanced stage of negotiations to purchase a lot in the city to replace the Canadian Hotel. There has been no further word on that development in the last 18 months.

Mr. Powell is resigned to the fact that, after providing a valuable service for the community for the last 20 years, he will now have to throw in the towel, even though his property is safer now than it ever was.

"We have battery-operated smoke detectors, dozens of fire extinguishers, we have the exits, we no longer have the dry-cleaning plant that had a bank of 16 gas cylinders there," he said.

"We no longer have a restaurant in the building which used to have gas cylinders and flames there all the time. If anything it is safer. We removed all open-burner cookers and now a microwave is the most tenants can have. Basically, the building's no less safe than it was eight years ago or ten or 12 ?if anything it's safer. There are disbelievers now who feel that my reasons for giving notice is not the insurance issue, but the insurance company just doesn't wish to take the risk I guess.

"I was informed just before Christmas. Originally, it was the beginning of January that my insurance was going to stop. It was only through serious negotiations between them and my insurance agent that we were able to get it extended.

"I informed Government as soon as I got back from holiday and knew that there was going to be no change of heart from the insurance company. I went directly to them and spoke to the Permanent Secretary of Social Services."

last week's press conference Col. Burch said it would cost up to $1.5 million to upgrade the facility, an investment that neither Government nor Mr. Powell is prepared to make. So what will happen to the Canadian Hotel now?

"We have permission to put up a multi-storey office building ? that's approved and passed," Mr. Powell said. "It's not my responsibility to provide housing. I have served the community for 20 years providing low-cost housing but it's not Ted Powell's responsibility.

"But for Government to say that this problem has just suddenly landed on them is just not true, it's been going on for years. I'm grossly disappointed that nothing has been done in the past eight years at least, or even prior to that.

"Little has been done in the housing situation generally, especially when you see gazillions of dollars poured into ferries. The cost of the new docks alone is astronomical. I would say that the biggest national crisis we have right now is housing.

"We have knocks on our door almost daily with people pleading for rooms. I hate to have to give those guys notice ? not so much because the hotel will no longer be operating, but because those guys have nowhere to go."

Thanks to Col Burch's decisive action, "those guys" will now have somewhere to go, in the short term at least. But would such decisive knee-jerk action have been necessary had the imminent closure of the Canadian Hotel not been ignored by a number of Government Ministers in the last four years?