A pregnant mother of four faces losing her children and a life on the street unless she finds accommodation by the end of this week.

The house that 22-year-old Diane McQueen shares with her mother and four children, including a ten-month baby ? was recently sold and she was given two months to find alternative accommodation.

Despite her best efforts she said she could not find anything and now, at eight months pregnant, faces the prospect of living on the streets and losing her children to Social Services.

Miss McQueen said she and her mother had been living in Khyber Heights with her four children for just over two years when the house was sold two months ago.

She said she was lucky that the new owner was willing to give her an extra two months to find a home, but didn?t know what would happen this weekend when she still had not found anywhere to go.

?He?s a really nice man. He is even willing to give us our last and first months? rent and a down payment on a new place so that he can start the work on his house, but we just can?t find anywhere,? she said.

One of the problems was that she could not find accommodation big enough for all of the family.

?With my mother and four children and another one on the way, we need at least a three-bedroom home and we can?t afford to pay more than $2,000 a month,? she said.

?If we all have to live in a two-bedroom place, then we?ll do it.?

She said it had reached the stage where her social worker had told her if she didn?t find a place, her children would be taken away.

?I?ve been through too much already and can?t face losing my children ? they?re all I have,? she said.

With her fifth child due in May, Miss McQueen recently turned to Financial Assistance and the Ministry of Housing for help.

?Financial Assistance told me I don?t fit the criteria because I don?t have a permanent address,? she said.

She said they wouldn?t even give her money for groceries and she?d been doing odd jobs all over the Island in order to get enough money to feed her children.

?Government will pay to have someone else look after my children in foster care and at the end of the day it would be cheaper for them to just help me find somewhere to stay than to put my kids in foster care,? she said.

Miss McQueen said there was an incredibly strong bond between her and her children and putting them in foster care until she found somewhere to live was not an option.

?I couldn?t stand being away from them,? she said, adding that it would take her too long to get them back if she did put them in foster care as everything would have to go through the courts and she couldn?t face that either.

She said she had been on a waiting list for housing for about three years.

?They offered me housing in Southside, but on the condition that I only take two of my children with me,? she said. ?How can that be an option??

When she turned it down, she said she was simply removed from the waiting list and had to re-apply all over again and wait.

As much as she would like too, she said she can?t live with friends or family ? not with four children.

The children are eight, three, 18 months and ten months and her fifth child is due on May 19.

Sheelagh Cooper from the Coalition for the Protection of Children said Miss McQueen was in ? a catch-22 situation?.

Ms Cooper said she had seen hundreds of young women in the same position as Miss McQueen who were unable to get financial assistance because they had no permanent address and couldn?t get housing because of the severe shortage.

?A day doesn?t go by that I don?t get an emergency call from some mother who is being threatened with losing her children because she is homeless,? she said.

?An enormous number of children are being placed in foster care because their mothers cannot find accommodation.

?It?s not helping the situation,? she said. ?The impact on the children and the families ? it is patently obvious that this system does not make any sense.?

She said money that was being paid for children in foster care needed to be directed towards helping families like Miss McQueen?s.

She said she had been working with Miss McQueen to try and prevent the loss of her children to foster care, but said at the end of the day there was not much she could do if it ever got to that point.

Meanwhile a tearful Miss McQueen holds her daughter Serenity and adds that she?s ?run out of options and run out of time?.