Frankie

Hannah Georgalas was at her wits’ end. The South Londoner had
a toddler son, her relationship had disintegrated, and she was
struggling to pay the bills. She was lost, broke and grieving the loss
of her old life when her landlord told her he was selling the cosy flat
she’d made her new home. Feeling utterly defeated and wondering
what to do next, she sat down to flip through a book of socialist
feminist posters. Suddenly, the light dawned.

“It had this poster with single mothers living in separate little flats,
suffering in isolation with the monotony of housework and solo
child-rearing,” Hannah remembers. “At the top it said, ‘ALONE WE
ARE POWERLESS, TOGETHER WE ARE STRONG’, and I thought,
‘Too fucking right. If only.’ Then I realised I could do that – if I
gathered the strength to organise it, I could find another single
mum to live with. We could share a bigger home and we’d each
have a shoulder to lean on and an extra pair of hands, plus I’d
have a companion for my son!”

Feeling inspired, Hannah started investigating her options. She’d
heard about some established ‘mommunes’ in central London,
but knew they weren’t the answer. “I just thought, ‘London makes
you hard. I’m hard. I want my son to be nice and soft like a peach.’
So I decided to start my own space here in Brighton.” She found a
house she liked the look of, then created a Facebook post detailing
her plans and the sort of person she wanted to share with. “It was
important for me that they were vegetarian and extremely
left-wing – they needed to be anti-racist, anti-homophobic and
anti-transphobic. Plus, they had to love children and want to
raise feminist children!”

Maya Leftwick couldn’t believe her luck when a friend of a friend

alerted her to Hannah’s post. She was also finding it tough to keep

afloat with her young son Freddie, who was not quite two years old.

“I had actually almost given up when I got the call – I had flights

booked for the following week back to my parents in rural Ireland,”

she says. The pair met for coffee and a powwow, and decided to give

communal living a go. “It was pretty quick,” Maya remembers.

“We met up on the Saturday and said yes on the Monday afternoon.”

Making the decision may have been quite easy, but overall, the

odds were stacked against them. “The housing situation for single

mothers in the UK is grim, to put it lightly,” Hannah says. The ladies

had to hustle hard to get real estate agents on their side – with

each of them working part-time and receiving housing benefits,

they weren’t exactly seen as prime rental candidates. Thankfully,

an agent took a leap of faith, and just over a year ago, the families

moved into a two-storey townhouse in central Brighton. Maya and

Freddie occupy the downstairs en suite bedroom and living room,

while Hannah and five-year-old Roddy have the upstairs bedrooms

and living area. They share the garden and kitchen (“It’s a very busy

and lively space,” Hannah says).

The two families are housemates with benefits. Though they have

their own separate lives – Maya is a freelance business consultant,

while Hannah juggles studying psychology with being an artist and

running her own vegan cake business – they help each other out

whenever they can. “We’ve both lived in share flats for pretty much

our whole adult lives, but it’s different when you’ve got kids and

there’s a lot more to consider,” Hannah says. “We help each other

when times got tough, hannah

georgalas and maya leftwick

found strength in solidarity.

WORDS LUCY CORRY

better together

real life