No challenge, it seems, is too big for Clifford Schorer.

The 37-year-old entrepreneur now taking on the "almost insurmountable" task of restoring the Sonesta Hotel to solvency, started his life in business salvaging distressed technology companies.

Mr. Schorer was 17 when he started his first company, Bottom Line Exchange, which specialised in buying struggling or bankrupt technology companies, in 1983.

"I decided there wasn't much of a home for me in the corporate world. And I went out and continued my education at night (Boston University) while I worked on the business," he explained.

"I've always been interested in assets ? buying and selling. So I thought it was a very good strategy. We were in the middle of a recession and it was always interesting to follow the recessionary progress of certain companies and we were able to work closely with them to turn them around."

As to why a 17 year old would have such interests, Mr. Schorer said: "I enjoy working very much and always have. And I enjoy thinking of solutions to problems and implementing them. And this project is so much more attractive to me because so many people thought that it couldn't be done ? that it was beyond its life."

Mr. Schorer grew up in New York, the first of two sons of a divorced mother, moved to Virginia at 15 and entered Boston University at 17.

He credits his single parent upbringing to helping to make him more independent minded. Start-up capital for Bottom Line Exchange was $2,000 all of which was spent on his first computer.

"It was a very challenging environment in which to start a business. There certainly were no lending institutions that were willing to lend to a 17 year old with no experience to start a business," he told The Royal Gazette.

"Fortunately for me I did find some good mentors who were willing to take a risk on me and loan me $8,000 to get enough seed capital to get going."

The venture succeeded, thanks to an early profitable deal and years later Schorer branched into real estate.

Sonesta Hotel's distressed state was well known to Mr. Schorer when he made contact with then owner Aetna Insurance company some four years ago.

Two years later they had structured a take-over deal put together a deal that Mr. Schorer says involved a "really good long term future" for the hotel.

Bermudians, he said, were a key deciding factor in pursuing the deal. "I think it's a magnificent place and the people here are amazing. I told the staff when I came here that obviously the financial challenges on a project like this are almost insurmountable and the thing that pushed me to a decision were the people that work here.

"And I still stand by that ? there are great people working here. And the Bermudians are really a people that are unflappable when it comes to things like this," he said. "If it weren't for the people I wouldn't be here."

Hurricane Fabian struck just three months after the deal was finalised ? forcing a strategic rethink.

"The original plan was to renovate about 100 rooms per season and to do as much as we could on the operational side to make the hotel successful in what everyone acknowledges was a very challenging climate. And to add to the property with residential development and at the end of the cycle in about eight to ten years after completing the development work that we had, to re-evaluate what new type of hospitality structure should replace the ageing structure."

Now the entire hotel is being renovated over the next two seasons, and amenities such as a water park and waterfront dining are being added.

Plans for residential developments on the property have been postponed until 2006.

Once Sonesta got underway, Mr. Schorer became acutely aware of Bermuda's affordable housing crisis.

The former student activist learned first hand from staff at Sonesta of what he termed the "great injustice" heaped upon hard working people who couldn't afford a roof over their heads.

Last week he was identified as one of the key people to spearhead the new Southside affordable housing project.

"Southside is something that we've been thinking about since the day we arrived in Bermuda and it's driven by the fact that among our staff and among everyone we talk to we see a great deal of housing injustice," he said.

"It's a plan, I think, which takes the best practices of present thinking in the United States on housing and developed a plan that works in Bermuda. That seed began over a year ago.

"We kept it as a private effort and there were many Bermudians who were instrumental ? showing us many sites and the plusses and minuses of the sites. My role has been financial analysis and trying to drive the project toward the housing issue."

Effectively the scheme will develop 200 homes, half of which will be reserved at affordable prices to be subsidised by the more expensive market rate homes.

At 19 he bought a Lancaster, Massachusetts nursing home and converted it into apartments ? a project he finished three years later and which gave him his first insight into housing issues.

More recently he took over a housing project from the state, restructured it financially to guarantee the existing low income residents 18 years tenure.

Mr. Schorer and his business associates formed a charity to develop affordable housing in Nantucket funded with 100 percent of the profits of a hugely successful real estate venture.

That project ? Nantucket Homes for People ? is currently in construction and became the model for the Southside project, Bermuda Homes for People.

And like Bermuda Homes for People, the Nantucket project will represent the first opportunity for median wage earners in Nantucket for affordable home ownership ? the median price of homes in Nantucket is $1.2 million.

"If you look at certain European countries that have a much more centralised control of housing ? like Holland. They've solved the problem, but they've done it without really embracing the free market and I think you can solve the problem by harnessing the free market, by using the power of the free market to lift all boats."

But how did what one would expect to be a hard nosed businessman get to focus on social issues?

"I'm probably not old enough to be a hard nosed businessman. I hope I never get old enough to be a hard nosed businessman," he laughed.

"I've always been interested in social issues. I was a bit of a radical as a young person ? got in a lot of trouble for it actually."

A self described social democrat, his earliest political activity was to protest the US administration's policies at the tender age of 13.

"My parents certainly didn't appreciate that. But I've been a little bit on the cusp politically."

His commitment to the affordable housing cause here is clear ? Mr. Schorer steers the conversation away from himself to refocus on Bermuda's most pressing issue.

"The housing issue in Bermuda is so much in your face if you have employees. You know their daily struggle revolves around meeting tremendous obligations on housing.

"And as a hotel we can't afford to pay them enough to compete in that marketplace and so there's got to be some give. And this is something that I think addresses that need."

He added: "There are more stories than I can tell. Among my staff alone I know there are people working two and a half jobs, and at that they can't meet the obligations of the rent.

"And so they end up being displaced, living with relatives. It creates a lot of social turmoil, and that social turmoil comes to work. Every day it comes to work."

He agreed that such turmoil in the lives of employees will impact the bottom line.

"It's more than just the cost of operating in Bermuda. These issues conflict with people's ability to come and do their job and feel comfortable and feel confident that they are working for something that everyone wants at the end of the day which generates home ownership and security.

"And if you're working in a marketplace that's out of control you don't have that safety and security."