I'm 16 and was made homeless while studying for my GCSEs

I’d just finished a gruelling run of mock exams when mum gave me the news I’d been longing to hear – ‘I’ve found a flat we can afford to rent,’ she said.

For the past six months I’d been homeless and living in a B&B with Mum and my two little sisters – I was 16 while my sisters were just 14 and 11.

With all four of us crammed into one cramped room, trying to revise had been almost impossible. There was no desk – just a double bunk bed for the three of us and a single mattress on the floor for Mum, squashed next to a small kitchen area.  

I tried studying on my bed but had to stop because my sisters were either too noisy, or the light was keeping them awake. So I had to study while sat on the loo, with my textbook propped on my knees, in the small adjoining shower room.

It was so cold in there my legs would go numb after 10 minutes. It was really damp too, with mould growing up the walls. Spending so much time in there made my asthma worse but there was nowhere else to go.  

I want to be a doctor, so I had to do well in my GCSEs. I’d go into school early to catch up with my work and do my exam preparation.

I didn’t tell any of my friends I was homeless. I was too embarrassed, so it felt really lonely sometimes – just one of my teachers knew what was going on at home.

Just six months earlier we’d been living in a warm three-bedroom house a few miles away.  We’d lived there for six years, and my mum always paid the rent on time. She has a good, professional job, but unbeknown to us kids, in December 2021 the landlord had decided he wanted his property back.

He’d served Mum a Section 21 notice – a no fault eviction – which meant we could be kicked out despite doing nothing wrong. 

Mum didn’t tell us at the time as she didn’t want to frighten us. Instead while we were at school, she’d be doing her best to find us a new home to rent, but private rents were too expensive in the area.

That’s when Mum rang Shelter’s emergency helpline. They advised her on how to handle the eviction and put her in touch with the council to help us either find somewhere or apply to be homeless. 

That tiny room, with no proper kitchen, cost Mum £50 a night

I only found out what had happened when Mum told us we were facing eviction in March last year. 

She told the three of us together – we were all so shocked and my sister started crying. It was surreal – but she tried to reassure us that it would alright and that she was working hard to find us somewhere else to live.

It’s hard to remember how I felt at the time. I think I forced the memory out of my brain.

When we were actually evicted three months later, the council moved us into the emergency B&B. That tiny room, with no proper kitchen, cost Mum £50 a night.

We were told it would be for six weeks, but six months later we were still there. I was losing hope. 

I hated living in the B&B. I used to have my own bedroom, but there I had no space. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was so angry and frustrated.   

Then finally, a couple of weeks after finishing my mock exams, Mum came home with the brilliant news that she’d found a three-bed flat to rent. ‘You’ll have your own bedroom again,’ she’d told me with a smile. 

I felt so happy when we moved in just two days before Christmas last year, and I’ve even invited a friend over. But the fear of being evicted again niggles at the back of my mind. It had happened once, why not again? 

There are currently more than 120,000 homeless children in England, living in temporary accommodation with their families.

Some have it worse than we did – they have to share bathrooms with strangers or move to a totally different part of the country miles away from anything and everyone they know. 

I really wish the government would do more to fix housing. They could ban no-fault evictions like they promised they would in 2019. They could unfreeze housing benefit so families could find another rental instead of becoming homeless, like us.

And they could build more social homes so children like me can have a stable, secure home and not have to live with the fear of being made homeless again. 

My only anxieties about my upcoming GCSEs come from them being such a big deal – not because I’m cramped in a room and unable to study properly.

Today I know I can achieve high grades as I can finally study at home in peace and quiet.

Finally, I can feel good about my exams.

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