Homelessness: A homeless single father wants a home for his children.

Aaron Mullan is a single father of two and has been homeless since 2023.

“Life changed very quickly. I became a single father of two,” he told BBC News NI.

Mr Mullen went to the Housing Executive and his family had no permanent place to go. He was kept in a hotel in Antrim for five weeks.

More than 5,300 children are living in temporary accommodation in Northern Ireland, according to the latest figures from the Department for Communities.

Mr Mullen said: “We would travel an hour and a half each way to school. It took us far from any support and public transport cost £17 a day.”

He added that they have “very few facilities”, including no refrigerators or cooking facilities.

“My youngest was still drinking from a bottle. I would buy fresh milk but he had nowhere to store it.”

New statistics from November 2024 show that 5,378 children were living in temporary accommodation, of which 3,385 were nine years old or younger.

This represents a 121 percent increase since January 2019, when only 2,433 children were living in temporary housing.

The number of households living in temporary accommodation has also doubled since January 2019.

In November 2024, 4,908 households were living in temporary accommodation, compared to 2,065 in 2019.

Between April and September, 8,250 households were presented to the Housing Executive as homeless.

Mr Mullan and his children were eventually placed in temporary accommodation in Belfast in October 2023.

There are currently 27 adults and 42 children living in the family’s temporary accommodation service.

He said that I am very lucky to be here.

“Having my own cooking facilities felt like I won the lottery. I felt like my life had exploded again.”

However, she said the stress of homelessness has taken a toll on her two children.

He said that my daughter does not want to get out of bed in the morning.

“She’s feeling frustrated and doesn’t have a very healthy way to vent her emotions.

“It’s too confusing for them. You can’t make her room for her.

“If she wants a unicorn, you can’t decorate. It feels like you’re living in an empty space. You still feel like a guest.”

Mr Mullan said he was worried about where he would be placed next.

“You don’t want to tell people you live in a hostel because that’s a prejudgment, that stigma,” he said.

“There’s a fundamental shame because in a way you’ve failed to give children a safe place to live.”

Mr Mullan and his family are among 58,000 people who are homeless in Northern Ireland.

With the sector under pressure – groups supporting those experiencing homelessness said their services needed to be protected.

Bernadette Donaghy from Depaul said having a home gives a sense of belonging and belonging.

“The families that come here to DePaul are displaced from their families,” he said.

“They’re socially isolated. They don’t know the community, they don’t know where they’re being held and that’s where DePoll comes in.”

Charlotte McKee and her son received help from DePaul Family Services. They had to move out of their rented accommodation due to mold problems.

“The landlord raised the rent and didn’t fix the issues. I couldn’t afford to rent anywhere else so I declared myself homeless,” she said.

Ms McKee and her son, who has additional needs, were given temporary accommodation at a family service run by Depaul, 18 miles from her son’s school.

“Homelessness definitely affected my son. The way it shows with my son is emotional behavior, abusive behavior,” she said.

“Being homeless was really hard on him.”

Ms McKee traveled on public transport to and from her sons’ school to “maintain some continuity for him”.

One is the thought of uprooting your home life and two is your school life. It made me feel like I was unworthy,” she said.

She and her son recently moved into permanent housing.

“I can really see a difference in his behavior and he’s a lot calmer,” she added.

Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick, a socio-economic rights expert at the University of Ulster, said inflation – the rate at which prices are rising – was one of the “crowded” reasons for the rise in the number of people being made homeless.

“We have a private rented sector in Northern Ireland, we have a long history where very little social housing has been built over the last two decades and therefore there is a housing shortage,” he said.

Dr Fitzpatrick said the “chaos” of living in temporary accommodation would “reflect that. [a] A Child’s Life”

“There’s probably a lot of stress involved in moving from one place to another, not having a stable home and a stable environment.”

She added that the lack of stability is “very damaging to mental health, and just to the life of the child and the parents, it’s very destructive”.

Nicola McCrudden, chief executive of Homeless Connect, said: “Sadly, for many people experiencing homelessness, having their own place is becoming an aspiration.

“Homelessness is solvable. If we want to reverse homelessness, we need to increase housing supply and affordability – including tackling poverty.”

Deirdre Canavan from DePaul said the “disappointing” figures were “not a big surprise”.

“A ‘perfect storm’ has developed over the past few years that has forced many families into temporary housing,” he added.