Lisa Roberts and her 15-month-old son, Liam, spend their days at the Whitby library or walking around parks and playgrounds.

At night, the same playgrounds become their place to sleep, curled up in the play structures wrapped in blankets.

Roberts, 38 — who is nearly eight months pregnant with a girl — and her son have been homeless since the beginning of May, when she had to leave her basement apartment in Whitby because her landlord’s son was returning from university.

MORE ON THESTAR.COM

Taxes for transit 'absolutely essential,' Glen Murray says

Novel set in Toronto private girls school reveals petty cruelties

Hamilton men happily home after Dominican wedding turned into prison nightmare

Living off welfare, she has been unable to find a one-bedroom apartment for less than $800 in Durham Region.

“I was told there is a 12-year waiting list (for affordable housing),” she says. And when a rental apartment is listed online, she says, landlords just don’t want to rent to people with children “because they can be destructive.”

Roberts has doctors in Ajax but is having trouble getting to them, and missed her last prenatal care appointment. Liam is healthy for now, she says.

Roberts is one among a growing number of women who are having to wait longer and longer to find homes in Durham Region, says Atiya Siddiquei, manager of the Muslim Welfare Centre, the region’s only shelter that caters specifically to women and children who are homeless but not fleeing abuse (there are separate shelters for that in Oshawa and Ajax).

“Honestly speaking, it’s really getting tougher and tougher every day,” she sighs. The 40-bed shelter is usually filled to capacity.

“Most landlords don’t want to rent to people from shelters. Bad credit is another problem; many people have been evicted in the past. It makes it very hard to find places for these women. It’s a long process (to get into affordable housing). If they are not abused, just homeless, they have to wait years and years, with no other option than rental properties.”

However, she says, even though women are now spending three months or more at the shelter while seeking housing, instead of six to eight weeks, it’s even worse in Toronto.

“We’re really finding women are getting stuck,” agrees Ruth Crammond, director of shelter and clinical services at the YWCA, which runs shelters in Toronto for women who are homeless or are fleeing violence. “Women are staying in Toronto shelters longer.”

The number of women and children entering the mainstream shelter system is also on the rise, according to a study noted in the first ever national report card on homelessness, released this week.

“It’s difficult to say why, but it could be a product of the pressure on low-income families, whose earning power is decreasing … as housing costs are increasing, which squeezes you out of the housing market and leaves you one crisis away from homelessness,” says Tim Richter, president and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness.

The report card called for all levels of government to contribute to building affordable housing. Ontario’s problem with affordable rental housing was recently described in an Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association report as “staggering and worsening.”

Women with children, in particular, want to find housing that is both affordable and in an area where they feel safe, notes Crammond. But after months in a shelter, they often accept substandard housing that can put them at risk of violence or further violence, she says.

“In rare cases we see women returning to their abusers … or entering relationships quickly to secure a place to live.”

Cases of homeless parents and children are investigated and dealt with based on severity, said Caroline Newton, spokesperson for the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies. A child will only be taken away from a homeless parent if there’s “an immediate risk of safety,” Newton said, adding that efforts are always made to get in touch with other family members who may be able to help temporarily take care of the child, or place the parent and child in a proper shelter.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

If a child is taken into CAS care, the aim is to eventually reunite that child with his or her family, said Newton. “The protection and the well-being of the child is paramount, but the goal is not to just scoop as many kids as possible,” she said. “The goal is to be as least disruptive as possible.”

Back in Whitby, Roberts is frantically continuing her search for a home, poring over online listings provided by her social worker at the library every day. She takes breaks to collect batteries, which she exchanges for cash to help her feed her son.

She says that after spending one night in a shelter, that just isn’t an option — “it didn’t feel safe for my son. He stayed awake all night shaking,” she says.

Though her father lives in Whitby, living with him isn’t on the table. She says their relationship is strained — documented in passionate poetry and prose Roberts has penned over the years and one day hopes to publish. And she is no longer with the father of Liam and her as-yet-unborn daughter.

“I’m hoping to find something soon, before my baby is born,” she says. She has name picked out for the girl: Ailey. “After that, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”