The Government has a plan for housing and is acting on it, Housing Minister Senator David Burch said this week.

He denied that people were being dumped in the Pembroke Rest Home and Wyndham Resort staff housing because of a lack of foresight from the Government. Both facilities are being transformed into emergency housing to cater to people who will be moved out of the former Club Med facility and Leopard’s Plaza.

The Senator said: “Last week the story was that we wouldn’t be able to fix the Club Med issue. Now that we have a place to house these people, the new story is that we don’t have a plan.

“If the Opposition knew that people would move into Club Med illegally, or that the Leopard’s Plaza would catch on fire, I wish they would have told us.”

He said people who had been squatting in the long-abandoned Club Med building have already started moving into the emergency facilities and that the 16 units at Wyndham have met the fire code regulations.

The Senator spoke after a press conference unveiling a new initiative to help people “hustle” and work on BHC properties to earn extra cash.

Sen. Burch admitted that the emergency facilities were not ideal but said there was little he could do to please people unhappy with the move.

“Are they going to like it? Probably not,” he said.

“I wouldn’t like to live with strangers either, but they have asked for help and this is what we can give them now. They can turn it down if they want to. It’s emergency housing. We are not going to keep these people there forever.”

He pointed to new developments are scheduled to begin this year — some 200 units.

And he denied that the Pembroke Rest Home was unfit to live in. Previously it was closed by Government amid concerns that the elderly residents received sub-standard care and the facility was run down. He said it was not conducive to elderly people living there, with less wheelchair accessibility than the newer facility in the East End but it is suitable for its current purpose.

Sen. Burch said: “We haven’t fixed it up much because we haven’t needed to fix it up. Plus it’s only temporary, but it is fine to live in.”