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The Kindness of Children's Aid
June 24, 2013 permalink
The Toronto Star quotes OACAS spokesman Caroline Newton:
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.
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.”
At least, that is what they say in public.
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Homeless in the GTA: Finding affordable housing especially tough for women
Lisa Roberts, who expects to give birth to a daughter soon, has been homeless with her son since May, when she had to leave her basement apartment.Torstar News ServiceLisa 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.
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.
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.”
Source: Metro News (Toronto Star)
Thanks to Pat Niagara for finding this gem.
Three days after publication of the above story, CAS seized Lisa's child. Based on past experience, CAS has a watch on her unborn child as well.
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Children's Aid Society removes son of Whitby homeless woman
On Tuesday afternoon, Lisa Roberts' young son was taken away by the Durham Children's Aid Society.
The Durham Children’s Aid Society has taken away Lisa Roberts’ 15-month-old son after receiving an anonymous call about her living in a Whitby park with her child.
Roberts, who is nearly eight months pregnant, was located by Durham Region police officers on behalf of DCAS on Tuesday afternoon at a bus station in Ajax. She was with her son on her way to pick up a cheque from her social worker, she says.
“I’m a good mother. I’ve been taking care of him. He’s healthy, happy and loved,” a frantic Roberts told the Star on Tuesday. “If I lose my son I will die.”
A court hearing has been set up for later this week. She says she has been told that she will not be able to see her son until then.
Children’s Aid cannot comment on any cases it deals with, said spokesperson Andrea Maenza.
A child will only be taken away from a homeless parent if there’s “an immediate risk of safety,” Caroline Newton, spokesperson for the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, told the Star.
Newton says 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 to place the parent and child in a proper shelter.
Roberts says she was not given any options that would allow her to remain with her son, such as staying at a shelter.
Roberts, 38, became homeless in May after she had to move out of her apartment, which her landlord needed back. After running out of money to pay for a motel and briefly staying with a friend, she began sleeping in parks with her son.
Roberts is currently on welfare and is working with her social worker to find an affordable, permanent place to live. She has chosen not to stay in shelters.
After her story in the Star appeared, Roberts received an outpouring of offers of help.
She has declined offers of temporary places to stay because she says she does not want to be a burden on other families. Some of the places are too far away from the father of her two children. Roberts is no longer with him, but he has been providing some financial support.
However, for the next few nights, Roberts says a generous woman is covering the cost of a motel for her. “She is an angel,” she says.
Roberts says she is grateful for the offers of help she has received but adds that she is “not looking for handouts. I’m looking for a hand up.”
She is hoping that a book of prose, poetry and artwork she has created based on her life experiences will be published and provide her enough income to take care of her children.
But for now all she can think about is reuniting with her son.
“I’ve looked after that boy since he was born. He saved my life.”
Source: Toronto Star
Addendum: In November Lisa got her child back.
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Formerly homeless Whitby mother reunited with children
Lisa Roberts, who lived in a Whitby park for a while with her toddler, has found a new home and regained custody of her son and newborn daughter.
In the one-bedroom basement apartment in Whitby that’s been home for just over a month, formerly homeless Lisa Roberts smiles as she feeds her 2-month-old daughter from a bottle.
The girl’s name means “truth and grace of the beautiful one.”
Her curious, chubby-cheeked brother, nearly 2 years old, plays with a toy bus on the living-room floor nearby.
Roberts, 38, was reunited with her children by the courts on Oct. 23. As the Star reported earlier this year, the Durham Children’s Aid Society took her son near the end of June after Roberts, left homeless at the start of May, ended up living in a Whitby park for five days, after running out of money to pay for a motel.
Her daughter was taken three days after she was born on Sept. 1, says Roberts. The children cannot be named for legal reasons.
“It’s warm, it’s comfortable, we’ve got what we need right now,” Roberts says of the $700 apartment she pays for through social assistance.
The important thing is that her two children are back with her, she says. A friend will be dropping off a sofa soon, and she has her own laundry room, she adds.
She will remain under scrutiny by the CAS for the next six months. Roberts says she lucked out with a landlord who saw renting to a woman with small children as a priority rather than as a deal-breaker.
While homeless, she struggled to find a landlord that would accept young children, she told the Star earlier this year.
Roberts says she accepted an offer to stay with a woman in Mississauga for about a month, made after a Star report on her plight. But after the woman moved, Roberts says, she later returned to living in a Whitby park for three weeks before giving birth to her daughter.
Roberts says she had a place to stay lined up for when she and her daughter left the hospital, but CAS took her daughter three days after she was born. The temporary loss of her children was the “most trying period of my life,” she says.
She was allowed to see her son, and her newborn daughter, only twice a week for two hours. She’s concerned about the effect of that separation on her son.
“I can’t go out of his sight; he clings to me,” she says. Some nights, she says, he wakes up screaming and climbs into her bed.
Though she had wanted to breastfeed her daughter, now she can’t, she adds.
Roberts, who maintains she was treated unfairly by the CAS, says she is researching her legal options.
Source: Metroland / Durham Region
