When Vanessa Piper moved her family from Orlando, Fla., to Westbrook to be closer to her sick father, she didn’t think that her biggest concern would be finding a place to live.

But after being kicked out of a friend’s house and turned away from Portland shelters, Piper, her husband and four children ranging in age from 4 to 12, began a three-month battle to find a home. Her family floated from friends’ houses to hotels and, some nights, even slept in their car.

When Westbrook officials became aware of Piper’s problem, they began questioning the city’s protocol for helping people who have suddenly found themselves homeless. They didn’t find many answers.

“I realized how ignorant I was of the situation,” said Sue Bearor, a Westbrook School Board member who held a community forum last week to start talking about the issue.

With winter approaching and demands high on the city’s general assistance program, community members are calling for a plan so that others can avoid battles like Piper’s.

At last week’s meeting, some residents suggested the city set up its own shelter. Others said they’d like to see apartments available on a short-term basis for families who become homeless. Logistically, city staff said, both would be difficult, which is why they’re turning to Portland for help.

“We need to proactively and creatively try to find ways to help,” said City Councilor Drew Gattine.

According to Jon Ross, homeless coordinator for Westbrook schools, homelessness has always been a problem in the city. But over the past three years, he’s seen more and more children come through the school system who don’t have a permanent place to live.

Ross works with homeless students to make sure they stay in school despite the instability of their living situations. As of last May, he said, he had worked with 15 students throughout the school year. Now, in November, he’s already seen 16 cases, and expects that number to change before the spring.

“I know I’m going to have more,” he said.

Ross said there are many different scenarios that lead to Westbrook families becoming homeless, including domestic violence, eviction, burglaries and fires. And there are different ways of being homeless, too.

The majority of students he sees are living with other families. Some are staying in shelters and others live on campgrounds during the summer and need to find warmer places to live when the temperature drops.

Police Chief Bill Baker said he sees homelessness in all its varieties, too. From abandoned trailers to vans on Walker Street, Baker said, people are camping out all over the city, some causing problems for police with criminal behavior.

“I just found a new one yesterday, over by the bridge on Brighton Avenue,” he said.

Families moving from house to house show up on his radar screen, too, whether they’re victims of domestic violence or have substance abuse or mental health issues that end up getting them involved with police.

Baker said he’s reached out to many of these families, but found that in Westbrook, and even Portland, the resources aren’t there for him to give them the help they need finding housing and jobs.

“I didn’t have great success,” he said. “It’s been frustrating.”

The police department is the city’s first line of defense for finding immediate shelter for people with emergency housing needs. Baker said he elicits help from the Red Cross and local churches to find immediate shelters for those who come to him.

However, once the emergency situation has been dealt with, Westbrook’s homeless fall in the hands of Rene Daniel, director of general assistance for Westbrook Housing.

In the five years he’s worked in the city, Daniel said the number of homeless people that come into his office has risen dramatically. When he started, he said, about one or two homeless people would come to him every month. Now, he said, it’s about 13 people a month.

“Last year, it blossomed. This year, it just exploded,” he said.

Finding homes has become harder, too. Fewer landlords, who dealing with the high price of heating oil, are taking in tenants at reasonable prices.

“Rents have gone so, so much higher,” Daniel said.

He said five years ago he wouldn’t have a hard time getting a family into a $725 apartment in Westbrook. Now, that cost has nearly doubled, and landlords aren’t including the cost of heat and utilities in their rents as they used to.

As Daniel works to help find these families permanent places to live, the question remains about what to do in the meantime, without a homeless shelter in the city.

Daniel said city staff is currently working with the Portland homeless shelters on an agreement to house homeless people from Westbrook, and the resolution of those negotiations could come as early as the end of the week.

Meanwhile, Piper and her family finally found an apartment and are in the process of filling it with furniture. After several weeks of making phone calls and saving every penny, they were able to make the $800 rent payment and pay their utility bills with $15 to spare.

Despite the hardships she faced, Piper was never tempted to turn around and go back to Florida. Her kids, she said, are happy in the schools and she was encouraged to see the support she received.

“I still think it’s a great community,” she said.