I don't know how much this method will suit you, but you can try using an invisible character instead of a space, which looks like a space, which will definitely count as 1 character unit.
Just hold down the "
ALT" key and press the numbers on the keyboard on the right "
0160" and you will get the desired character.
Or you can run this command and get this symbol which will be between quotes:
//echo -a 160 = $+(",$chr(160),")
This would be the simplest solution, because in your case the space "
$chr(32)" will not read as 1 character unit.