Pregnant woman desperate to find shelter after eviction from city housing in Hamilton

Days away from her baby boy's due date, Jennifer Foster is preparing for heartache.

The Hamilton woman, 41, has no permanent housing and fears if she doesn't find a place for her and her newborn to stay, she will have to place him in foster care. 

She spoke to CBC Hamilton earlier this week. As the baby kicked, visibly moving her belly, she began to cry. 

"I want more time with him," she said.

When Foster was seven months pregnant in October, she and her two children, aged 6 and 10, were evicted from city-run housing over unpaid rent. 

Since then, Foster says she calls multiple shelters every day, including one that accepts families. Every day, she's told there's no space. 

Foster has already had to split up her family, with one child staying with his father while Foster and her other child stay with a friend. Foster sleeps on the couch, a precarious arrangement that's temporary and only until she gives birth, she said. 

"I'm waiting for the inevitable now," said Foster, who told CBC Hamilton on Wednesday she had gone into labour.

"I'm going to have a baby and I have nowhere to bring him home to and that's where the story ends."

She said she's speaking out as a last ditch effort to find somewhere for them both to go. Fearing it may be too late to help her own situation, she said raising awareness could help other families experiencing homelessness in Hamilton. 

"I think there's something missing in the system," Foster said. "I can't have slipped through that many cracks — I'm making myself obvious. I'm contacting places over and over again. Am I doing something wrong? Am I missing something?" 

Foster said her life began to unravel when her Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) account was hacked in 2020 and frozen on and off for over two years, setting off a chain-reaction of barriers she was unable to overcome.

Hackers accessed 48,000 CRA accounts that year, as previously reported by CBC News. They changed direct deposit banking information on 12,700 accounts, and applied and collected benefits. CBC Hamilton viewed a letter the CRA sent to Foster asking for documentation to help unlock her account, citing the hack.

There was no single hotline Foster could've called to unlock her account, said Ritesh Kotak, a cyber security and technology analyst and technology lawyer. Instead, victims of the hack had to navigate submitting documents to multiple agencies, including the CRA, police and Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.