A thousand single mums have no home to call their own

"They think because you've got a roof over your head everything is okay, but it's not."

Passed from one damp house to another, Shauna, a pregnant single mother, can barely remember what it feels like to have a safe and secure roof over her family's head.

When the Manchester Evening News spoke to her earlier this year, she and her daughter had both had chest infections, and she was terrified to bring her unborn baby back to her mould-infested house in Newton Heath.

Increasingly, more women like Shauna are now relying on temporary accommodation, as they are priced out of decent, affordable housing. She is one of more than 1,100 single mothers in Manchester who had no home to call their own in winter.

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According to new government data on homelessness, between October and December last year, 1,106 single females with dependant children were living in temporary housing in the city. That was a 12 per cent rise from 2021, more than double the national average of five per cent.

It comes as the number of people living in hotels, bed and breakfasts, and other makeshift accommodation in the country rose to over 100,000 - the highest number in 18 years.

In Manchester, where the number of people living in temporary housing is the highest of any local authority outside London, 3,194 people and 1,981 families were without a permanent home at the end of 2022.

The conditions for some families are frightening. In January, one single mum living in temporary accommodation in Crumpsall said that after hearing about the death of Awaab Ishak, she feared her own daughter's cough could be due to her damp-riddled property.

Two-year-old Awaab, from Rochdale, died from a