The Salvation Army?s 25-year-old ?temporary? housing facility is finally facing a complete makeover.

Built at 5 Marsh Lane as a temporary measure to deal with the homeless, the housing facility?s life span expired fifteen years ago.

Plans to revamp the facility were first mooted in December 2000 with plans to expand the base into adjacent land at the Parson?s road site on to Government and derelict land.

Home to 62 displaced men and women, the current facility is owned by the Government, but managed by the Salvation Army and is, according to Major Lindsay Rowe, at capacity.

This, he said, stressed even more the need for a larger facility to deal with Bermuda?s growing homelessness.

Government indicated several months ago that plans were in place to replace the current facility and Major Rowe and other top officers were asked for input into what they wanted the facility to look like.

He said this was provided by way of an interview with a representative of the Ministry of Health and Family Services.

The ideas conveyed to the Ministry were loosely based on the Salvation Army?s ?Centre of Hope? in Canada where the most pressing issue facing the Salvation Army is also homelessness.

?We have not heard anything further since that interview which was about two months ago,? he said.

But added that the Salvation Army was optimistic that Government was moving in the direction of replacing the ageing facility with a new one.

The Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health, Kevin Monkman said he could not go into any detail as the project was still in the very early stages of discussion.