Text editor removes non-breaking spaces and <br>

I’m trying to add non-breaking spaces or <br> elements below heading tags in the text editor. I’ve tried shift+enter and then manually adding &nbsp; and <br> in the text tab, but as soon as I hit save or publish the page, they are removed.

The only thing that seems to work is manually adding <span> tags. The end users (client) need some easier way to add an extra space that is not a paragraph.

I’ve searched for this issue in the forums and online with no luck. Is anyone else having this issue? Is there a fix?

Thanks!