When strangers are in the house, Kyle perches on the stairs, tiny fingers wrapped around the thin metal bars supporting the railing, peering at the intruders in his kitchen.

When all eyes have turned away, the 6-year-old focuses on the landing closet, pulling out coats and shoes and throwing them into the hall. When the supply of clothing is exhausted, he peels off the tiles at the bottom of the closet and throws them on top of the coats.

"He's quite a handful, " says his grandmother, Cheryle Liliani, 49.

But as difficult as things are, they are going to be even tougher if the government funding they depend on is cut back.

Liliani and her husband, Sergio, 59, live in Mississauga. They took Kyle in when he was 30 days old. They got full custody at a year. His mother's brain aneurysm as a teen affected her judgment, so she started abusing drugs. His father is out of the picture; a man who believes he is Kyle's father occasionally calls and leaves rambling messages wishing him well.

The family uses a form of government support known as Temporary Care Assistance (TCA) to supplement Sergio's income as a truck driver. They have for about five years.

As of October, about 3,900 caregivers in Ontario were using TCA to support 5,400 children. In Toronto, as of the same date, there were 514 TCA recipient households caring for 701 children.

The program provides temporary financial support when a child's parents cannot care for them. It is meant to be temporary, not part of a long-term care arrangement.

Recipients receive up to $236 each month for a single child and up to $192 for subsequent children. It is not income tested and its duration is determined on a case-by-case basis.

The Lilianis are expecting their TCA payments to stop - and they are not alone.

In July, the Ministry of Community and Social Services released a directive that in part clarified who is eligible to receive TCA.

Minister Madeleine Meilleur says the directive was sent after she learned Hamilton and Ottawa were applying the TCA program more strictly than the rest of the province and that they were keeping arrangements temporary according to ministry guidelines. "So the staff reviewed these two areas and found that they were the ones applying the program as they should be."

There has been no change in the TCA program, she says.

Grandparents groups argue it puts low-income grandparents reliant on TCA between a rock and a hard place, that by fighting for custody or making efforts to create a stable home they stand to lose a source of funding they need to buy food and pay bills. They are also calling to receive the same support as foster parents.

Betty Cornelius is the founder of Cangrands , a non-profit support group for grandparents. She says for a grandparent to qualify as a foster parent, the child in their care must have been removed by the Children's Aid Society from a dangerous situation. A foster parent receives about $930 each month, not including extra funding for children with special needs. Grandparents typically circumvent the court system and take in the children before the situation escalates to that point, she says.

"If you get the phone call saying come get your grandchild or we are going to put them with strangers, you are going to come and get them, " Cornelius says.

Grandparents can apply for a type of kinship funding equivalent to foster care through CAS, but it is based on requirements too stringent for many grandparents to meet, says Cornelius.

She got custody of her now 15-year-old granddaughter when she was 3 after she found her granddaughter colouring alone, next to a pit bull, with pornography on the television. Her parents failed to see the problem with the video, she says.

Cangrands says 62,500 children are being raised by grandmothers and grandfathers across the country. Cornelius says many of those children have some sort of special need or developmental disability.

Like Kyle.

In addition to TCA, the Lilianis receive about $430 a month in government support because Kyle has special needs.

Because Kyle has developmental disabilities, he doesn't learn or express himself the same way as other boys his age. Toilet training and speech development came late. He has extreme sensitivity to noise and light.

"He will have these meltdowns now where he will try and run away, " says Liliani.

Kyle can get away, but can't remember the address and phone number needed to get him safely home. When he is angry, he kicks, bites and rips down curtains.

"We love him and like I say, I don't see anyone else doing what I would do, " says Liliani, who went through the foster care system as a child.

"I think it's really important for a child to have some idea of their roots."

Wavey Bennett lives outside Ottawa. She has raised her six grandchildren; five are now under the age of 13. She has final custody of the children, she says.

She has been receiving TCA since 2002. Now it is about $795 a month.

"They told us (in 2002) that we would never want for anything for these kids, that as long as we had the kids we would be getting help for them, " says Bennett, 58.

A care worker told them the TCA payments will stop in January but didn't explain why, says Bennett.

She works as an educational assistant. Her husband, 60, works in construction. Their gross income for 2007 was $62,000.

That is not a lot for five kids, says Bennett. The TCA money helps with groceries and bills and after-school programs for the kids.

Most of the kids have a variety of attention deficit or obsessive disorders, says Bennett.

For one, burnt or crooked toast can derail the whole day for everyone.

The complications of caring for special needs children is why grandparents think TCA should be automatic despite the status of custody and why they want the same funding as foster parents.

"There really does seem to be this perception that virtue is its own reward, " says Lynn Cunningham, who has been raising her grandson Andrew since he was 16 months old.

Cunningham, 59, is an associate professor with the School of Journalism at Ryerson University and an advocate for grandparents' rights and children with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Andrew, who is about to turn 18, was born with full fetal alcohol syndrome, she says.

"He has struggled in school for all of his life and while he is chronologically 18 in certain ways he is less mature, " says Cunningham.

Grandparents are expected to step in regardless of the emotional and monetary cost because "that is what families are for, " she says.

"All of these kids have been traumatized in one way or another. If they haven't, they would still be living with their parents.

"Their medical needs are greater than an average kid who isn't in that kind of circumstance."

Cornelius says many grandparents may be forced to relinquish their grandchildren to the care of CAS.

"I get that they are in a recession and they have to do budget cuts and they have to cut the fat, but we are not the fat, " she says.

Trent Hills - Grandmother looking to form grandparent support group

Grandparents raising grandchildren; a growing trend in Canada that places immeasurable burden on this aging population. Reporter Valerie McLaughlin met one local family surviving on love and community support.

After spending the night at a friend's house, six-year-old Storm Bastien runs home to inform her grandmother, Valerie Unsworth, that she had a great time.

At the age of 52, Ms. Cornelius says she is blessed to be a young grandmother, but there are some grandmothers and relatives who are raising children in their 70s. "It is a tough job because we are all older. The average age of a grandmother (doing this job) is 58," she said.

Before taking custody of her granddaughter, Ms. Cornelius said she led an exciting life, including experiencing the thrill of driving her motorcycle across Canada. Now she often finds herself reading to her granddaughter and helping her colour. "It is still an exciting life, but it is very different," she remarked.

"Maybe the birth of this third child has opened her eyes. I don't know," she said, adding her daughter's drug problem has caused rifts in the family. "Her brothers and sister hate what she has done to her kids and what she has done to me," she said.

Regardless of this, Ms. Unsworth said she is still more than willing to raise her daughter's children. As she waits to see if her daughter will seek treatment for her drug abuse problem, she is interested in starting or joining a support group for relatives who have a loved one fighting substance abuse.

"Our hands are basically tied to help these people," said Ms. Unsworth.

© 2004 Pembroke Daily Observer (ON). All rights reserved.