100 days after fire and only five families have new homes
Promise to survivors of three-week wait turns into three months
ONLY five families who escaped the Grenfell Tower fire have moved into permanent accommodation, 100 days on from one of Britain’s worst peacetime disasters.
A total of 143 grieving and traumatised families remain in bed-andbreakfast hotels or emergency housing as they await an offer of a new home, a situation described as “shameful” by campaigners.
Around 80 people are believed to have been killed in the fire at the 24-storey tower in North Kensington in the early hours of June 14.
Emma Dent Coad, the Labour MP for Kensington, today told the Standard: “After three months some are begin- ning to give up. Some people I’ve been supporting are in a worse mental state than they were a month ago.
“They don’t see any hope. It’s actually getting worse. People are desperate. I have no idea why it has taken so long to find people homes.”
Soon after the fire, Theresa May pledged to rehouse those who had lost their homes within three weeks. Kensington and Chelsea council claimed it had achieved this as the offer was for temporary or permanent accommodation. The council said 56 households had been offered a permanent home, with 48 having accepted. Of these five have so far moved in.
A total of 171 households have been offered temporary accommodation, of which 65 have accepted. The others have chosen to remain in hotels or elsewhere.
Nicholas Burton, 50, who lived on the 19th floor and was one of the last to get out, accused the council of a “business as usual” approach.
He said: “A lot of people have been so brave and are trying to look to the future, but they are in limbo. They can’t get on with their lives until they’ve got their own place, where the kids have their own rooms.”
Mr Burton has been living in a hotel while his wife Maria remains in hospital. The couple have been offered temporary accommodation in Notting Hill until February.
Mr Burton, who grew up in North Kensington and lived in Grenfell Tower for 33 years, said: “The people who have got our future in their hands are not doing anything. I can’t get my life back on track until I have a property that I can call my own.
“They don’t know what we had to go through. They don’t know that my wife and I were trapped in our bathroom for an hour while our house was on fire. They don’t know that we lost our dog and everything from our parents. They don’t know that we had to step over bodies coming down the tower block. And they don’t care.”
Mohammed Rasoul, 35, who led his wife, two young children and 86-year- old father to safety from their blazing fifth-floor flat, slammed the “shambolic” official response.
He is still living in a hotel with his family, and said the time taken to find permanent accommodation had compounded their trauma. He said: “I know it was an exceptional case, but there’s no trust in the council, the Government or the justice system.”
Last week his family accepted a permanent offer of accommodation in Earl’s Court, but have not been given a date when they can move in.
Council leader Elizabeth Campbell said: “To date, we have purchased more than 100 properties, and over the coming months we will spend tens of millions acquiring new homes. This council will not stop until every single Grenfell survivor is rehoused.”