It is not until women experienced prolonged homelessness that mothers were more likely to be depressed compared with women without children. A similar pattern especially was found for PTSD. The findings from this study also suggest a multifaceted relationship between the duration of homelessness, mothering and various mental health conditions among women living in poverty. While complex interactions exist between motherhood and various social, economic and health factors (such as education, income and employment),35

36 the burden of multiple stressors relates to poorer mental health and as the number of stressors increases, the probability of poor outcomes increases.32 We found some evidence that the stress of prolonged homelessness seems to have a stronger effect on women who are mothering compared with women who are not. This is likely, in part, because mothers faced with the stress of poverty and housing instability must do their best to care

for their children while also overcoming adverse life circumstances. When a family’s financial resources and social supports are in short supply, women with children must stretch their limited resources further to meet both their own needs and those of their children. In short, it is more problematic to be living in poverty when you have dependents than when you do not, because more family members are sharing the limited resources. Further, as the duration of homelessness increases, the likelihood of involuntary family fragmentation through child welfare involvement is a high risk as are the mental health consequences of the trauma of losing child custody. Moreover, the intergenerational legacies related to homelessness, mental illness and foster care have untold consequences for children. Limitations While this study provides important insight into the relationship between the duration

of homelessness and mental health among women who are mothers, the results should be considered in light of several methodological limitations. The most important limitation of this analysis is the possibility of reverse causation. The cross-sectional analysis is unable to discriminate between the impact of mothering on mental health and the possibility that women who have mental health conditions are more likely to be mothers. While this is an important limitation Entinostat with regard to the temporality of events, the results do provide important information about the broad associations between the duration of housing instability, mothering circumstances and mental health among women in Canada. This study is also limited in that we were unable to distinguish between women who never had children and those with adult children. While it is possible that there are important differences between these two groups of women, for purposes of this analysis, neither were attempting to parent minor children.