Government?s own draft Sustainable Development Strategy provides proof that Government has failed to address the housing crisis since it took power in 1998, an Opposition Senator has claimed.

Opposition Senate Leader Kim Swan said the report contained clear criticisms levelled at the Government by consultants who investigated Bermuda?s housing situation.

?The consultants pointed to serious structural and policy flaws in the Government?s approach to housing which, taken together, simply make lasting solutions more difficult to achieve,? said Sen. Swan.

?They reported that Government has no clear housing policy, relying instead on initiatives that are ad hoc and purely reactive in nature; that it has an uncoordinated approach to housing that means ?only a partial view of the housing needs of the Island is being taken? and it lacks a separate department with clear roles and responsibilities for housing.?

Sen. Swan added: ?These are major flaws in the Government?s approach to housing, and they constitute an indictment of its management skills and its commitment to helping people.

?Without a fundamental shift in thinking and commitment, the Government?s handling of the housing crisis will continue to be scattershot, structurally unsound and myopic.?

By way of contrast he said his own Party in 2003 had outlined plans to build 100 affordable homes for rental by 2005, and had intentions to work with financial institutions to provide ?lowest level mortgage rates to build affordable homes at the former base property of Tudor Hill in Southampton?.

The UBP also sought to create a National Housing Strategy to put the problem into a national context to find solutions, he said.

Sen. Swan claimed Government is demonstrating it has lost its ?social compass? by not having an effective housing plan in place.

He said: ?The Government must understand that housing is a major issue. When people can?t put a roof over their heads, or the costs of housing strain family finances to breaking point, problems develop in other areas of their lives as well as that of the community in which they live. Bermuda deserves better.?

And taking a swipe at the Government for the way it pushed through approval of large salary increases for its Ministers, including an 80 percent increase for Premier Alex Scott, Sen. Swan said: ?If the Government applied the same resolve in dealing with the crisis that it demonstrated in bulldozing through Parliament its own pay increases, the situation might be different ? but this is not the case.?