Single Mum, Son And Baby Living In Hotel Room In Liverpool’s Housing Crisis

As Liverpool continues to struggle with explosion in homelessness a young mum and her children are just trying to survive, reports the Liverpool Echo.

In a cramped, cluttered hotel room in Liverpool city centre, Abbie Coulthard is returning home with her children. The 31-year-old mum has just come back from picking up her eight-year-old son Rocco from school. She is carrying her tiny six-month old baby Dollie in her arms as she presses the button for the hotel elevator to take her family to the room they currently call home. Inside, there are three beds pushed together. Abbie sleeps in the main double bed. There is a single bed for Rocco and a smaller unit for baby Dollie to sleep on in between them.

Drying clothes hang from the curtain pole in the corner of the room, in front of a window that doesn’t open, with a small fridge balanced on the ledge. On the table near the room’s television are a kettle and an air fryer – this family’s only means of making or heating food. A garish piece of artwork clings to the wall of the room, undoubtedly aimed at guests heading to the city for a party, not a family just trying to survive. This poky room, busy with household items has been where Abbie and her kids have been forced to live for the past five gruelling weeks. The story of how her life went from normal to out of control is a sadly familiar one in this city.

Liverpool has been experiencing an acute housing and homelessness crisis over the past couple of years. There are around 1250 families in this city who, like Abbie and her kids, find themselves living in emergency temporary accommodation that is clearly inappropriate. In the last financial year, the cash-strapped city council was forced to pay out more than £21m purely on housing people in hotels and bed and breakfasts. A staggering 12,000% increase over the last five years. This year could see that bill hit £30 million. Behind those grim numbers are stories like Abbie’s.

“We lived in a normal house in Hunts Cross, but the landlord put the rent up and then said he wanted to sell the house,” explains the 31-year-old mum. “We got a Section 21 eviction notice and we had to move out.” Before this, Abbie had operated a café and considered herself to be doing fairly well, but like with many people who are forced out of their homes – things can quickly spiral. Cost of living pressures forced her to close the business and with nowhere for her and her children to live – she desperately contacted Liverpool City Council for help. At this point Abbie and her children joined the growing number of people living a transient existence in this city, being moved from temporary spot to temporary spot, wherever the council could find. Some locations were a very long way from home.

“At first they put us near Warrington in a motel room at a service station full of trucks,” explains Abbie. “There was nowhere to make food, we survived on meal deals from WH Smith, I had nowhere to sterilise the baby’s bottles, it wasn’t good at all.” After this, the family were remarkably moved all the way to Manchester. The facilities were better but the distance made it almost impossible for Abbie to get 8-year-old Rocco to his school in south Liverpool. Eventually the family were brought back to Liverpool and are currently residing in a city centre hotel, which the ECHO has agreed not to reveal the location of.

What has complicated an already very difficult situation is that Abbie has a debilitating health issue in the form of serious cluster headaches. She has been prescribed oxygen tank therapy to relieve the serious pain she faces from the condition, but says this has never been taken into account by those placing her in temporary accommodation. “I have been here for five weeks now,” she explains. “When I first got here I was saying I need to get my oxygen delivered and they said I couldn’t have that here. It was health and safety or something. But I really need it. I haven’t been able to take it to the other places they put me either. I am trying to just keep everything together,” she adds. “I have got to, for these two. But my head kicks off every couple of hours if I am up all night, I struggle. It’s not fit for purpose being here, especially with my health condition. Its just a nightmare. We can’t stay here.”

While we are talking, Rocco, just in from school, jumps on the bed to grab a drink from a mini-fridge that is resting on the window ledge of the hotel room. “That’s my mini fridge,” he says proudly. “It’s going to go in my new room when I get one.” Abbie says she struggles with the impact her situation is having on her son. “He hates it, he can’t play out with his mates or anything, we have no life here,” she explains with a resigned expression. “I am trying to keep him happy. We went to Taskers the other day and I was asking him what he wants for his new room. And he was like ‘have we got a house?’ and I had to say ‘not yet.’ It’s not easy.”

For anyone looking after a six-month baby and an eight-year-old son would be tough, but to do it in these cramped conditions is another matter. “We try and stay out of the room as much as possible,” says Abbie. “We can’t even cook a meal at home. All we can do is use the air fryer and the fridge.” In today’s precarious society, where rising rents, cost of living pressures and a lack of affordable housing have created a perfect storm of problems for families, Abbie’s is a story that could happen to so many. “This could happen to anyone,” she says. “I had my business, I had a house, I was driving around in a nice car. And then this happened to me overnight. I have never depended on anyone before, I’ve worked all my life and the one time I am now struggling it feels like I am just getting fobbed off.” It’s just scary how everything can spiral so quickly,” she adds. “I just feel like I am drowning.”

The ECHO has made enquiries about Abbie’s housing situation with the city council. It is understood she has just recently been offered a property in north Liverpool, but is concerned about accepting it because it is even further away from Rocco’s school than her current base.