A Pembroke mother woke up yesterday morning with no food in the cupboard to feed her three children — one of whom is a baby — and no money with which to buy desperately needed groceries.

O’Keisha Clarke lives with her three children in a bright, fairly modern Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) apartment on Fentons Drive in Pembroke.

However, until the Salvation Army provided Ms Clarke with some food yesterday, she was destitute.

With her friend Zee-Ann Warner there to support her, she sat in her kitchen and described the plight in which she and her children — O’xiyah, who is four years old, O’sias, who is two, and O’riahz, who is just three months — have found themselves.

Ms Clarke, who is on financial assistance, said she has been to the Coalition for the Protection of Children, the Eliza Dolittle Society, Cornerstone Bible Fellowship as well as the Salvation Army for additional help.

“Today was the day I was just done,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “I didn’t feel I should have to call the people at Financial Assistance, and say: ‘What you’ve given me for my children did not carry me through the month’.”

She said: “It’s really high stress — I only go to the MarketPlace and ShopRite grocery stores — prices are sky high,” she said. “Formula for the baby is $35 and change.” She added she always shops on Wednesdays to get the discounted prices offered at grocery stores on that day.

Among the issues she faces, she says, is this: if any money is left at the end of the month, the Department of Financial Assistance takes it back.

The Government department is mandated to ensure that individuals with insufficient financial resources have access to services to gain, maintain, or regain a minimum standard of living while encouraging personal and economic independence, according to the Government website.

It added that Financial Assistance also encourages clients to develop their skills and resources.

The website states: “The Financial Assistance Department is one of the Governmental departments required to protect the public purse and therefore it will continue close scrutiny of recipients while ensuring that the needy and the elderly are adequately provided for.”

The 30-year-old mother lost her job as a waitress at Fairmont Southampton about a year-and-a-half ago, when she was expecting her third child, and has not worked since. The father of her two youngest children is now also unemployed, and is currently taking a computer course, she said.

Financial Assistance provides about $800 a month specifically to support the children.

“My struggle is, Financial Assistance helps me, but it is the extent I have to go through to get help.”

Ms Clarke explained: “At first they just paid my rent, as my children’s father (who was then working) was living with us.” Her case worker at Financial Assistance advised her that in order to receive additional money to pay other expenses, such as electricity, her partner would have to move out.

“He was contributing,” she said. “But it wasn’t enough for everything we needed.

“The situation was making problems for us — he didn’t like being on financial assistance. So I had to get him out, and a new lease drawn up without him on it,” she said.

She added: “My oldest son’s father has never done anything for him. My former partner took the responsibility on, and treated him like one of his own.”

The children miss him, she said — particularly her eldest son, who knows him as his father. The situation has changed as her former partner is now unemployed, but: “If he moves in again, we will have to be reassessed again.”

Ms Clarke faced additional financial challenges because she has a gas stove in her BHC apartment. When she asked about assistance to pay her gas bill, she said her case worker told her that gas was not something that was covered. However, when she spoke to another official, she discovered that Financial Assistance would cover her gas costs, and would also pay for her water supply as well. “You get a lot of different stories,” she said.

As things stand, Ms Clarke is one month in arrears for rent — Financial Assistance missed a payment, she said — and she owes money on another bill. “It’s a struggle — every day I wake up, it’s a stress — I can’t forget about these bills,” she said.

Ms Clarke explained she also has health problems that require a specialist’s care. “But the insurance (provided by Financial Assistance) does not cover the specialist. I’m putting my health aside because I can’t afford it,” she said. “I’m tired of crying every day,” she said. “There are girls living off the system, but we are trying,” she said. “Zee-Ann and I want to do things with our lives.”

In order to stay on financial assistance she must actively seek work 12 times a week. “I look for a job every week faithfully. Everywhere I go, they say they are not hiring, not hiring, not hiring.”

Ms Clarke dreams of qualifying as a chef. “My mom was a chef — I’m familiar with it and it is my passion,” she said.

“I want to do catering, but I need my papers,” she said. “Papers are everything these days. I want to be legitimate.”

Ms Clarke faces a familiar hurdle — the cost of the course, which is several thousand dollars. While the National Training Board will help, she would still be left with finding the money for the remainder of the fees, she said. “I get big dreams — I want to go to the UK and open a Bermudian restaurant, but I can’t get a job in a kitchen until I’ve got a qualification,” she said. “They say Bermudians don’t want to do nothing, but there are so many obstacles you have to go through to do anything.”

A Government spokeswoman said that the Department of Financial Assistance does not comment on individual cases.