A front-line youth worker says the problem of children in government care who end up homeless on Edmonton streets is growing worse.

"If you'd asked me a year and a half ago it would have been anecdotal, but it's almost the rule where children in care … they have no placements to live, they have no access to basic needs," Mark Cherrington, a youth court worker with the Youth Criminal Defence Office, said Monday.

Homelessness occurs even though the province is responsible for finding its wards a place to live, Cherrington said.

"It's a matter of them either sitting in the rain or living under a stairwell because there is no placements, they can't find a place to live," Cherrington said.

CBC News spoke with one of those children, a 16-year-old who will be referred to as "Amanda," but cannot be identified under the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act.

Amanda was removed from her home because her mother got her hooked on crack cocaine, and she has been a permanent ward of the province for three years.

"I'm mad at the system for not trying to put more effort into me 'cause I'm doing everything normal like a normal kid, but I have nowhere to go, nowhere to live," Amanda said.

She was kicked out of the group home where she was living and has been on the streets for a week.

"I was clean for a year, off of drugs and a month off of alcohol, I had a full time job … and then I go and lose a place and have nowhere else to go," she said.

She has asked her caseworker for help and only wants a place to live, she said.

"A nice, stable place … just a roof over my head," Amanda said.

At any given time, 45 to 60 out of the almost 3,000 children in government care in the Edmonton region are listed as absent or missing, according to Cheryl Oxford, spokeswoman for Edmonton and Area Child and Family Services.

With files from Janice Johnston