A former Club Med squatter told a meeting this week how she took over a derelict property after finding herself homeless — and suggested others do the same.

The 51-year-old woman said she was displaced from a house she helped to build by members of her own family but had since got a roof over her head by reclaiming an abandoned home.

"You get a house, you fix it up," she told the public forum held by the Island's Sustainable Development Round Table, adding that she was willing to volunteer her services to help tackle the housing crisis.

"I'm going to be your gift," she said, suggesting that those in charge needed to listen more to poor people to really understand Bermuda's social and economic problems. "You just haven't felt the pain of the poor people enough," she said.

Others attending the meeting at the Goodwin C. Smith Church Hall in Hamilton spoke of their frustration at the number of empty properties dotted around the Island, when so many have trouble finding affordable housing.

"As a sustainable strategy, what can we do to rescue and reclaim a lot of the houses that are sitting empty?" asked one man. Another, Colin Campbell, said a list of such properties was drawn up under the United Bermuda Party Government but nothing had ever been done with it.

"Would someone please put the resources in place," he said "A decade is not good enough."

Major Barrett Dill, acting general manager of Bermuda Housing Corporation, told the meeting that a vacant and derelict programme was launched but ran into "lots of legalities" which the Attorney General's Chambers was now trying to resolve.

"Some of the problems were that the properties themselves were often in dispute between families," he said.

The Round Table itself came in for criticism at Thursday night's meeting by audience members who claimed it lacked any "teeth" to get things done — suggesting that many people don't realise it is simply an advisory board.

The Government's Sustainable Development plan was published several years ago after public consultation — but one young man told the meeting that many of its recommendations were "pie in the sky" and unlikely to be implemented.

"Am I going to be 60 years old when this finally happens?" he asked.

He said anyone working for less than $70 an hour in Bermuda would find life unsustainable. "The only thing that's sustainable is air to breathe and maybe water," he said.

The man said much had been said in recent years about helping the needy but little had happened. "I don't think you all really realise that people's lives are being torn apart," he said.

Board chairman Arthur Hodgson said it was precisely because of such problems that sustainable development was so important.

"Obviously it would be nice to have the problems sorted out tomorrow," he said. "When you put an idea forward it takes time for people to absorb those ideas."

He added: "We are all concerned about these problems and we are all frustrated about getting the solutions."

Sustainable development director Charles Brown told the meeting that the Round Table, though quiet of late, was still very active.

He said it was time for Government to put in place the actions laid out in the plan, which covers topics including the environment, the economy, energy, health care and the public sector.

• To find out more about sustainable development visit www.sdbermuda.gov.bm.