The mum and two kids living in a hotel room with beds pushed together
A mum has been left living in a hotel room with her son and baby due to the housing crisis.
Abbie Coulthard, eight-year-old son Rocco and six-month-old Dollie, live in a hotel room with three beds pushed together. The main bed is for Abbie, a single bed for Rocco, and a unit for Dollie to sleep in between them.
The family is one of many impacted by Liverpool's ongoing housing crisis. Their situation means that they have been forced to live in a hotel room for five weeks, the Liverpool ECHO reports.
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In the hotel room they currently call home clothes hang from the curtain pole by a window which doesn't open. Next to the hotel TV are an air fryer and a kettle, which are their only way of heating up food.
Behind the bed is a large, garish picture, a stark reminder that the room is usually aimed at people heading out on the town and not a family just trying to get by.
Liverpool is currently in the midst of an acute homelessness and housing crisis. Sadly, Abbie and her family are one of around 1,250 families who need emergency temporary accommodation.
The crisis is expensive as well, with Liverpool's council having to pay some £21 million to house desperate people in hotels and bed and breakfasts.
This figure represents an astonishing 12,000 percent increase over five years. This year the bill is only set to rise further still, and could hit £30 million.
Each of these figures represents a story just like that of Abbie and her family.
"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.
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