Discussions

Have you thought about legal costs required to take her to court? Will you hire a lawyer or represent yourself. The court process is really slow and a hassle for $200 in my opinion.

we took someone to small claims for a bit more money that that for spray painting our vehicle. We won and she was ordered to pay within a certain amount of time. She did not pay and we got a letter from the courts saying they extended her period to pay. That was three years ago and we have not seen any money, even though we won.  
 
She doesn't work, so we could not garnishee her wages, she doesn't have a license, so we could not do anything with that.  
 
So, we paid to have the truck fixed, won the court case and got nothing!  
 
I do not believe it is worth it - obviously if you win, like us, you may never see the money anyway.

Small claims court is a joke.  
I took a fellow that did a terrible carpentry job for me to small claims and won and got nothing because all of a sudden they could not find him.  
I even paid extra for the sheriffs office to find him and that too was a big waste of money  
Shortly after I see him playing the slots and then at the bank and I never got a penny of my so called "win in small claims"  
Do not waste your money unless you are suing a company or someone that you know has the cash

Sadly it's probably more time, effort and $ to take your roommate to small claims court.  
 
You would probably have better luck talking to who you owe money to (you might be surprised how willing they are to work with you if you phone them, rather than they chasing after you for $$).  
 
And sounds like you need to move or get your roommate out, might be easier to move in this case!  
Good luck

Time and effort to collect from someone when most of the bills are in your name. You will never collect anything anyway.

sit down with your roommate and talk about if. If they can't afford to pay the whole thing, try and make up some kind of payment arrangements. Be nice, don't make her mad. If it seems confrontational to her, you may never see a dime. But being blunt, to the point, but in a nice way may help.