A mother, her six-month-old baby and young son have been forced to live in a tiny hotel room for five weeks as a Labour council fails to deal with a housing crisis. Abbie Coulthard, 31, is stuck in the accommodation with her son Rocco, aged eight, and her baby girl Dollie, with the family having just a kettle and an air fryer to make hot food and drinks.
All in one room, Abbie sleeps in a double bed, Rocco has a single and there is a smaller unit Dollie, who sleeps between her brother and mother. Caring for her children, Abbie has to dry clothes in a room where the window cannot be opened, and with only a small fridge for keeping food fresh.
The Liverpool Echo reports the city has been “experiencing an acute housing and homelessness crisis” in recent years with around 700 families and around 700 single people living in emergency temporary accommodation. In the last financial year, the city council was forced to pay out more than £21 million 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.
Liverpool City Council told Express.co.uk Abbie’s case was a “priority”.
Mum Abbie told the Echo she had to leave a house after her landlord decided to sell the property and served her with a Section 21 eviction notice. She claimed at first, the local authority tried to house the young family in a motel room “at a service station full of trucks”.
She added: “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.”
Abbie explained the new room in a hotel in Liverpool is not set up for a debilitating health issue she suffers from. The mum-of-two gets serious cluster headaches for which she is prescribed oxygen tank therapy to relieve the pain.
She said: “I have been here for five weeks now. 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. 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.”
Abbie says she struggles with the impact her situation is having on her young son.
“He hates it, he can’t play out with his mates or anything, we have no life here, we try and stay out of the room as much as possible. We can’t even cook a meal at home. All we can do is use the air fryer and the fridge.”
“This could happen to anyone. 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. I just feel like I am drowning.”
According to the Liverpool Echo, the city council has offered Abbie a property in the north of Liverpool but Abbie is concerned the location is further from Rocco’s school than her current place.