Hav­ing once es­caped the clutch­es of home­less­ness as a preg­nant teenag­er, Shan­ice Ban­croft finds her­self on the verge of re­liv­ing her worst fear. An old night­mare with a dis­con­cert­ing new twist: she may have to con­front the hor­rors of street life with her 12-year-old son.

What was meant to be a sto­ry about a sin­gle moth­er’s strug­gle to buy school sup­plies had an un­ex­pect­ed­ly dis­tress­ing plot twist. The day be­fore the in­ter­view was sched­uled, Ban­croft mes­saged, “I got an evic­tion no­tice from my land­lord, which stat­ed that I have to va­cate the premis­es with­in one day.”

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived the next day at her now for­mer apart­ment in Long­denville, we met the de­ject­ed 31 year old, sur­round­ed by sev­er­al black garbage bags filled with items and a look of des­o­la­tion on her face. It seemed that get­ting her son’s text­books in time for Sep­tem­ber was no longer the most ur­gent mat­ter on her to-do list.

Ban­croft ex­plained she was one month be­hind on her rent and owed the apart­ment’s de­posit. She worked as a geri­atric nurse. How­ev­er, when her pa­tient passed, she lost her in­come.

“I have no plans, hon­est­ly, be­cause I have no one to fall back on. As a sin­gle mom who has been out here on my own for the ma­jor­i­ty of my life, it’s not like I can in­stant­ly run to some­body and say, I’m in this sit­u­a­tion; I need the help. Could you help me right away?”

When asked what would be her next move, Ban­croft said, “I don’t know; I hon­est­ly don’t know,” as she stared in­tent­ly in­to space on the now-bare floor.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the im­pend­ing prospect of home­less­ness and the high pos­si­bil­i­ty of liv­ing on the streets with her son, Ban­croft re­vealed that she knows all too well the ter­rors that await them.

“When I was preg­nant with him, it was the first time I en­coun­tered home­less­ness. I had no­body to turn to. I tried to stay by my moth­er when I was sev­en months preg­nant, and that didn’t work out be­cause she was think­ing that her 18-year-old daugh­ter shouldn’t be preg­nant, and that re­sult­ed in me hav­ing to stay in the Croisee,” she ex­plained while wip­ing away the fresh­ly formed tears in her eyes.

“Dur­ing the days I would go to Mario’s to sit down, prob­a­bly brush my teeth, and clean my­self. And in the night when they close, it’s back to the Croisee. Some­times I would try to go by the hos­pi­tal in the night to get some­where to sleep be­cause, as an 18 year old, be­ing home­less and preg­nant—the kinds of things you see out there—is some­thing I would not wish for any­body to go through. Peo­ple prey on you; they look at you like you have noth­ing, so you have to do what they want, and it was hor­ri­ble,” she said as she con­tin­ued tak­ing shal­low breaths while tears flowed un­en­cum­bered.

It was at that mo­ment that her son, who was stand­ing in the door­way of the soon-to-be-va­cat­ed apart­ment, peeked his head from around the back of our cam­era lens with a cu­ri­ous look, try­ing to fig­ure out why his moth­er was cry­ing.

When Ban­croft made eye con­tact with her son, it was then she reached the crescen­do of her sor­row. “I don’t want him to go through that kind of life be­cause I’ve been through be­ing raped, beg­ging for lodg­ing, and sex­u­al­ly ha­rassed. Now at his age, I don’t want him to know his moth­er go­ing through those things. He is a child, so for him to have to see his moth­er go­ing through those things or hear his moth­er go­ing through those things is ab­solute­ly ter­ri­fy­ing,” she wailed as her son com­fort­ed her by hold­ing both her hands.

Ban­croft said even when she could af­ford a roof over their heads, life has al­ways been dif­fi­cult. One week of no in­come could great­ly con­strain their most ba­sic needs.

“For the past few days, all we had was sa­da roti and sug­ar wa­ter to the point where the sug­ar wa­ter fin­ished yes­ter­day, and we didn’t have any­thing else. Once I am work­ing, we will try to cook some­thing and make it last about three days. But mak­ing sure we are fed, clothed, and pay­ing bills is re­al­ly dif­fi­cult,” Ban­croft ex­plained.

Sur­vival is al­so now com­ing at the cost of her son’s ed­u­ca­tion. The child is due to be­gin Stan­dard 4 in Sep­tem­ber. Ban­croft ex­plained that her in­abil­i­ty to af­ford his text­books has been hold­ing back his progress.

“School­books have al­ways been a chal­lenge for me be­cause one text­book alone costs over $100 at Stan­dard 4 lev­el. He fell back re­al­ly bad­ly in his school­ing. Some sub­jects he was not able to do or get good marks in be­cause he could not get the books. There is on­ly so much that can be done on the teach­ers’ side, but not be­ing able to do his home­work with books at home was even more chal­leng­ing, and it af­fect­ed his grades, where he fell back dras­ti­cal­ly,” Ban­croft said ashamed­ly.

Look­ing at the garbage bags filled with their be­long­ings, Ban­croft said most nights she cries and ques­tions her val­ue as a moth­er. “It even has days where I won­der what if I had giv­en him up. It had days rel­a­tives told me I should have put him up for adop­tion when he was born,” she said.

Asked about the child’s fa­ther, she gri­maced and said, “The last time I heard from him was Jan­u­ary. I asked him if he could help with $500 for his son on a month­ly ba­sis, and he told me no, he can’t do that be­cause he has his own life to live; he has to pay rent and buy his own gro­ceries.”

Af­ter a pause, she said, “I don’t want to be strong all the time, but I have to be.”

Giv­en the im­me­di­ate na­ture of Bran­croft’s plight, Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­is­ter Don­na Cox, who, up­on hear­ing of the moth­er’s sit­u­a­tion, im­me­di­ate­ly passed on her in­for­ma­tion to the Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

Ban­croft met with the di­vi­sion, and they are at­tempt­ing to process a rental as­sis­tance grant for the moth­er and son. In the mean­time, she is stay­ing with a friend.

Ban­croft said she was will­ing to work if of­fered a job with a steady in­come. She al­so needs an apart­ment own­er who will ac­cept the terms that come with the rental as­sis­tance grant.

When Guardian Me­dia left her to pack up the rest of her be­long­ings, her son, who was tasked with es­cort­ing us out, said, “I knew we’d have to leave here; when we first came, I thought it was too good to be true.”

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist Shan­ice Ban­croft and her 12-year-old son can con­tact her at 379-9796.