Homeless.

MaryNB

canaldumidi said:

House or flat share is the obvious cheaper alternative. Either with friends, or via a site like www.spareroom.co.uk

(duckduckgo search of other similar sites.)

Gumtree (but beware scams so don't pay upfront till you are 100% satisfied)

I second spare room. I was in house shares for about 7 years and it was by far the best website to use.

It's not always fun living with strangers but it is significantly cheaper than finding a place by yourself.  I had a few housemates who initially lived alone but had to move to house shares because they ended up in debt. As a rough guide you shouldn't pay more than a third of your take home pay in rent (obviously this will depend on other outgoings). 

Make sure you read up on your rights as a tenant (Shelter and Citizens Advice are great sources of info) and check out the Tenant Fees Act guidance on gov.uk. If you end up as a lodger you will have significantly fewer rights so read up on that as well.
If you end up sharing, avoid joint tenancies. Living with strangers can be challenging at times, being contractually tied to them makes everything more stressful. When you look for places, always always view before handing over a penny and try to speak to all the housemates to see what they'll be like. I would recommending living with people from your own age group.

TBagpuss

Also, check you are getting paid the correct rate for you apprenticeship - are you currently in your first year? You can be paid less if you are under 19 or in the first year but the rate goes up once neither or those applies.

You may qualify for UC to top up if you are on a low rate 

I agree with the advice to look for a house share - as well as the sites suggested, it may be worth checking in your local paper and  asking around at work and among your friends, house shares and people taking in lodgers will often give a good deal of weight to personal connections/recommendations where  they get a better idea of the person they might wind up living with!  

RAS

Check

National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

and

Council Tax: Who has to pay - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you're in year 2 of your apprentice, you're probably liable for Council Tax.

In which case avoid house shares where the rest of the tenants are students/exempt. As you could end up with a very big CT bill.

deannagone

I am sorry this is happening to you.  I appreciate this feels really awful.  But I am afraid that if your mother is in receipt of benefits, and is really short of money, she may be finding it even harder to make ends meet if she's lost all the child tax credit etc she used to get for you.  I've been there, I did manage but it wasn't easy.  I was still supporting my older son to some degree or other and it was difficult.  His 'rent' didn't really cover much more than his food to be honest.  You haven't got much coming in, obviously but she still has to pay the bills and probably doesn't want to ask you for too much.  Its a difficult situation.  

Your mum is probably feeling pretty desperate too, and thinks one solution to reduce the stress is to make you responsible for your own housing.  But of course, that is a horrible situation for you to be in with only an apprentice wages coming in.  If its any comfort, I left home at 16, and it was incredibly difficult (I had to pay a friend 50p a week for second hand shoes when my shoes fell apart and I had no money to replace them on my small salary) I did manage.  I learned what I could do without. I developed a pride in being able to manage, I didn't get everything right but I did learn.  

HLA will help with rent to some degree although quite often, its not enough to cover even the rent on a cheap rental property.  You will have to learn to feed yourself cheaply I'm afraid, if you haven't already.  I know I slept on a camping bed for a year because I couldn't afford a bed, someone gave me crockery and saucepans.., but nowadays there are a lot more voluntary organisations that help young people who are homeless/potentially homeless.., there's freegle etc where items are given away for free.  Do a search online and see if you can find an organisation who will help with practical and emotional support.  They may even know of a hostel you can go to so you don't have to pay out a fortune on beds etc.  Best to start investigating as soon as you can so you will know what will happen.  The council may not help unless you have some need that makes you a priority (like a mental or physical incapacity) but they will often have the name of organisations that will help.  

Your mum may be panicking right now, encourage her to get support and she may start to be able to plan other ways of coping.  I'm afraid councils (if she goes to them for help with housing) often do 'gatekeeping' i.e. say they can't help when as she has a younger child they have a legal obligation to help so she will need help from a housing charity too to make sure the information she needs to deal with is accurate.  This may help her plan what she can do about the situation.  She's desperate right now.  But its still a very difficult situation for you.