Making housing affordable for every Bermudian is the number one boast on the list of achievements trumpeted on the PLP website.

But for poverty campaigner Sheelagh Cooper the PLP have nothing to brag about when it comes to providing homes.

Mrs. Cooper, of the Coalition for the Protection of Children, deals with plenty of people who are promised affordable housing but she said most only get emergency housing such as the Black Circle in North Hamilton which she describes as unbelievably bad.

"That's really what happens, they get put into a holding pattern. I don't see how emergency housing can be described as affordable adequate housing.

"The PLP have made some strides in middle class housing, but nothing affordable for those people they committed to addressing. I see no progress for people I deal with. I know the waiting list is every bit as long as it was ten years ago."

Efforts to get statistics about the housing waiting list from the Bermuda Housing Corporation have proved unsuccessful.

Mrs Cooper said there had been no progress with promises to revamp derelict housing and the real problem wasn't a lack of housing – it was that people can't afford it.

Government will be helped by the economic downturn, said Mrs. Cooper with rental agencies reporting rents dropping very quickly.

But the downturn has also led to Government axing large scale housing projects despite doing little on that front in ten years.

Some have resembled a farce such as the HarbourSide Village.

Four years ago a developer with a track record in building low cost homes in the States offered to build nearly 200 homes at Marginal Wharf, St. David's.

One half would be sold at a market rate to help subsidise another 98 to be sold at $199,000 to winners of a lottery. International business would finance the scheme which would eventually pay for itself.

But the company set up for the project went bust when Government failed to hand over the land.

Government took over the project, renamed HarbourView Village, and Housing Minister David Burch said it would be ready in "early 2009" — three years late for 110 families.

Last month Sen. Burch announced the project had been scaled down again. He pledged a total of 58 units will be ready in a year's time however, the remaining 48 units, together with plans for Pepper Hall Common in St. David's and other developments in Dockyard still have question marks over them due to lack of funding.

PLP promises began in 2000 about replacing the crumbling shelter on North Street in Pembroke where the Salvation Army house 55 people but nothing has been started.

In July this year Culture and Social Rehabilitation Minister Dale Butler revealed a proposed redevelopment of the North Street Emergency Shelter, which would double the facility's housing capacity, with an occupation date of March 2010.