More than 2,000 Bermudians received financial assistance in the past month, with pensioners the biggest group seeking help, followed by disabled residents.

In the tough economic climate the need for a helping hand is great, but some people are making matters worse for themselves because they incorrectly believe they cannot make a claim for rent assistance until they are three months in arrears.

Dispelling that myth, and a few others, is part of the task for Wayne Scott, the Minister of Community, Culture and Sports, and Dianna Taylor, the Director of the Department of Financial Assistance, following the setting-up of a hotline to report abuse of the system.

There is no deny there is genuine need for assistance for many residents. In December, of the 2,391 Bermudians being helped, 773 were pensioners. Other large groups included 469 classed as low earners and a further 445 who were out of work.

Topping the list of myths about financial assistance that need to be dispelled is the notion that applicants must be three months in arrears before they can get help with paying the rent.

Ms Taylor noted the relevant legislation was changed in 2008 to prevent or push potential applicants not to wait until it’s too late.

“It’s an untruth. One thing we tell people is you don’t wait until you’re in arrears a lot. If you’re feeling the pinch now, come now.

“If you’re pinching your arm you don’t wait until the arm is amputated to say ‘ouch you’ve got a problem’. Basically, what I’m saying is when you’re starting to feel it, that’s when you need to come,” said Ms Taylor.

“At that point we will clarify your picture for you and how we can help or not. For a person to say they have to wait until they are three months in arrears — why, when that don’t make sense?

“First of all the legislation says that we’re only able to pay the current month and one month in arrears. So come now. One of the reasons the legislation changed that way was because people were waiting and coming six months to a year later. We can’t pay that.”

And in today’s economic climate she said it’s always good to think ahead.

“If you’re in a situation where you think you’re going to lose your job, or you’ve been told shortcomings are going to be coming, you can come to Financial Assistance and have a sit down with our pre-screeners at that time to say ‘this is going to happen to me in six weeks’.

“We will then look at your picture and tell you whether or not you are able to come through the doors then or what you have to do,” she added.

The department also receives a number of calls reporting occupants not authorised to live in with a recipient. But she said it has nothing to do with breaking up a family.

On that note, she said honesty is the best policy and recipients are required to sign the dotted line on it, in a three-pillar system.

The policy “has on the front page all of the different penalties with all the actions that you could do to get suspended”.

“They read that, they understand it, they sign it,” she said.

But she said if applicants do three things their road to assistance will be a seamless transition.

“First of all you must be honest, you must be accountable and you must be timely. Once it’s all in you have an appointment scheduled to see a worker within a week and you will know that day what you’re qualified for.

But if the applicant says there are two children in the house and the boyfriend lives with her as well, that’s another issue when it comes to the assessment.

“If he’s working and not accounted for then the assessment would not be a fair assessment because his income needs to be included in that assessment.

“What happens is people don’t often tell you that somebody else is living there. It’s not that they can’t, that’s not it at all. And if he’s not working that’s a factor.

“We count bodies and income that comes in. If two adults and two children are there and nobody’s working, then they are assessed on the fact that there’s four people in the household and nobody’s working. They would be assessed for all basic staples of living, rent, food, electricity, etc.

“The point is we want to provide help and the more responsibly we spend assistance dollars, the more help we can provide to those who need it.”

Both she and the Minister reiterated the department’s “ultimate goal is to help our people”. The department’s mandate is twofold, she added. The first priority “is to provide for people who cannot financially provide for themselves”.

“But it’s also to scrutinise the Government purse and we take that very seriously.

“When people say ‘I got to go up there and fight for my money, it’s my money — it’s our money too and it’s your money too,” said Ms Taylor.

“That’s what I think people don’t see, so when people say ‘it’s mine, you act like it’s yours, it is mine and it also belongs to everybody else who works in Bermuda who puts money into that pot.

“Don’t forget these are grants, these are not loans from a bank, there’s no interest charged, there’s no payback. This is a serious thing and we take it very seriously. So if it’s one person that’s abusing that we could stop then we do that.”

Mr Scott said: “Ultimately, the best financial assistance in the world is a job. Not everybody who is out of work has requisite skills to be employable in a tougher economy.

“So we want to actually help to provide those skills as well because to not do that is the violation to our people, and we’re not about that.”

With suspensions already built into the system for abuse “that have always been there” he said: “You’re always going to have those issues.

“What we want to do even more so now is try to identify. But let’s help the people who need to be helped.

“We never want to break families up, and we are facing hard times.

“One of the mindsets that we have to change, especially in an economy when people are hurting, is that you’re not going to be able to maintain a luxurious lifestyle on financial assistance.”