“You can’t study for exams sitting in a doorway.”

That’s the harsh reality of Liam McCloughlin’s current situation.

The 20-year-old has been homeless for around six years but has aspirations to finish his GCSEs and go to university.

He is currently living in temporary private accommodation with his best friends Matthew Nuttall and Nathan McCarthy but they will be back on the streets again from Monday.

All three have spent years on the streets, living in squats and even spent 18 months in the doorway of TK Maxx.

They are now desperately trying to kick start their lives and get into higher education.

But without a home they will struggle to find a place to study and fear their academic ambitions will fall by the wayside.

Matthew, 20, has been homeless for around five years after losing his mum.

He is currently working towards his English GCSE so he can become an accountant and ‘never be poor again’.

“I’m struggling for help and just anything, any opportunity,” he said. “Money, somewhere for us to live would be ideal, anything. Just help.”

His pal Nathan, 21, already has 12 GCSEs but needs to get an A Level in Physics before he can move onto a degree in the subject.

He has been street homeless on and off for the last four years and says the simple things, like staying clean, have proved to be the biggest challenges.

“Even when you try to look fresh you meet people and tell them you’re homeless and they’re like ‘you don’t look homeless’. So you end up in a vague boundary where people on the streets that would help us won’t because they don’t believe we are homeless. But because we’re homeless we can’t get the help we would normally get from services whilst in an accommodation.

“It makes things like studying an impossibility.”

“You can’t study sat in a doorway,” adds Liam.

Perpetually cheerful and articulate, Liam is a talented musician who hopes to study music or psychology at university.

But the day to day struggles of living on the streets and in squats have made it difficult.

“Everyone has a right to a life worth living so what’s the point in a life if it’s not worth living?” he said.

“It’s just a ditch that you can’t get out of.

“I’ve been robbed on the streets, I’ve been mugged on the streets.

“I do not want to go back to the streets at any cost whatsoever because it’s not nice.”

The lads admit that they first met because of the drug Spice.

All three started using the ‘synthetic cannabinoids’ before it was banned by the government last April.

But they have all been clean of the drug for almost a year and have vowed they will never use it again.

Liam said: “It brought us together but then we all got off it together. It really helped us having everyone in a group to get off it because on your own, what you gonna do?”

The three friends have been staying in a private property for the past couple of weeks but will have to leave on Monday.

Charity workers from Greater Manchester Housing Action have been supporting the friends with their studies - which are mainly done online and are now working frantically to try and find them a new permanent home keeping them all together. They are calling on any landlords, or anyone who can help to get in touch.

“We have bust a gut to try and house them but now we’re reaching the end of our limits and we need someone to step forward,” says volunteer Isaac Rose.

“There has been a total explosion in young homeless people and landlords are just saying they won’t take tenants under 35.

“It’s such a problem. We’re coming across young people living in squats and vans. It’s absolutely gut wrenchingly heart breaking.”

One GMHA volunteer has been regularly meeting up with the friends in coffee shops around the city centre to help them revise for their exams.

Isaac says changes to the benefit system and shared accommodation rates means hundreds of young homeless people in Manchester are struggling simply because of their age.

The Government intends to withdraw Housing Benefit entitlement from some 18-21 year olds from April.

Issac also claims that private landlords ‘discriminate’ against young single people, especially those in unstable employment.

“Often when they go to rent a place it’s assumed they will not be trustworthy and they usually don’t have a guarantor if they grew up in care and don’t have family,” he said.

GMHA hopes to raise £10,000 to help Liam, Matthew and Nathan as well as their friend Kyle, 20, with university fees and study aids.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’ve made mistakes in the past but I’ve grown past them and I just need that opportunity now to be able to move on. We all do,” says Nathan.

Anyone who can help the friends should contact the M.E.N. on 0161 211 2920.

The M.E.N has pledged to support and publicise the Manchester Homelessness Charter at appropriate opportunities.If you are affected by issues surrounding homelessness in any way, or if you want to do something to help, you can go to: streetsupport.net