A former US military zone baseball pitch is the unusual location chosen to site a mini-community of pre-fabricated homes to put a roof over the head of Bermuda?s most desperate homeless families.

Once used by US Navy personnel to wile away free time playing sport, the baseball diamond at the gateway to the former US Naval Annexe at Morgan?s Point should be providing emergency housing to the most needy by the first part of 2006.

Only a month after taking on the role of Minister for Works, Engineering and Housing, Lt. Col. David Burch unveiled details of the plan to erect 10 pre-fabricated homes on the Island within the coming few months.

The temporary single storey, three-bedroom homes are costing the Government $39,000 each, although the actual bill is increased once shipping costs have been added.

Sen. Burch admitted it was an experiment, and something that was already schemed before he took over the Government?s housing brief, but he did not rule out more prefab temporary homes if they successfully meet requirements.

?If there is a need to expand further we will explore that,? said the Senator.

The prefabs have arrived from North America and will be erected quickly, according to Sen. Burch, with the intention of handing keys to the first occupants some time in the first quarter of 2006.

Six of the homes have been earmarked for the at the old baseball pitch at Morgan?s Point and two more will be placed in Beacon Hill, Somerset.

The final two prefabs will be ?held in abeyance? possibly to be sited in a central Island location, although Sen. Burch pointed out that there is enough space at Morgan?s Point to allow all the temporary units to be placed there if the need arises.

He added: ?All sites are on Government-owned property and are readily accessible to the facilities required to support these units, such as water, sewage and electricity.?

He stressed the prefabs were temporary emergency housing and as such the families that would live in the units will remain on the Bermuda Housing Corporation housing list to be given a permanent home as and when one becomes available.

Morgan?s Point remains out-of-bounds some 10 years after the US military vacated the site leaving a legacy of a polluted environment.

Sen. Burch remains adamant the area needs to be properly cleaned up before any development is allowed on the peninsula.

The six prefabs will be placed at the gateway to Morgan?s Point, on the border of the Railway Trail, and therefore not on the polluted land. The small community will be created in a compound area with the remainder of Morgan?s Point remaining sealed off.

Asked about the future of Morgan?s Point as a potential development site, Sen. Burch said much would hinge on an environmental assessment of the former military base, which the Government hopes it may be able to have undertaken at no expense to the people of Bermuda.

Once that is completed the question will be who foots the bill for the expected multi-million dollar clean-up project.

Figures ranging from $27 to $50 million have been mentioned, but Sen. Burch said technology has advanced in the 10 years since the US forces departed and a clean-up may now cost much less than envisaged a decade ago.

A figure in the $27 million or lower region would, in Sen. Burch?s opinion, open the opportunity for a case to be made for the Government to pay for a clean-up rather than make a ?clean-up in exchange for land? deal with a developer.