BBC
Aaron said pressure of being homeless has had a significant effect on his two children.
Aaron Mullan is a single father-of-two and has been homeless since 2023.
“Very quickly life changed. I ended up a single father of two,” he told BBC News NI.
Mr Mullan went to the Housing Executive and there was nowhere permanent for his family to go to. They were placed in a hotel in Antrim for five weeks.
The latest Department for Communities statistics show over 5,300 children are living in temporary accommodation in Northern Ireland.
Mr Mullan said: “We’d travel an hour and a half each way to school. It took us so far away from any support and cost £17 a day on public transport.”
He added they had “very little facilities”, with no fridge and nowhere to cook.
“My youngest was still drinking from a bottle. I would buy fresh milk but had nowhere to store it.”
The new statistics show in November 2024, 5,378 children were living in temporary accommodation, 3,385 of these children were aged nine and under.
This represents an increase of 121% since January 2019, when just over 2,433 children were living in temporary accommodation.
The number of households living in temporary accommodation also more than doubled since January 2019.
In November 2024, 4,908 households were living in temporary accommodation, compared with 2,065 in 2019.
Between April and September, 8,250 households presented to the Housing Executive as homeless.
‘Living in a blank space’
Mr Mullan and his children were eventually placed in temporary accommodation in Belfast in October 2023.
The family temporary accommodation service currently houses 27 adults and 42 children.
“I am very fortunate to be here,” he said.
“Having my own cooking facilities felt like I’d won the lottery. I felt like I had a burst of life again.”
However, he said the pressure of being homeless has had a significant effect on his two children.
“My daughter in the mornings doesn’t want to get up out of bed,” he said.
“She is feel
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