Dozens of families from Grenfell Tower will spend Christmas in hotels, figures reveal

More than 100 households left homeless by the Grenfell Tower fire will be living in hotels over Christmas
Ben Morgan6 December 2017

Dozens of families who survived the Grenfell Tower fire will spend Christmas in B&Bs, figures reveal today.

Council bosses in Kensington and Chelsea have admitted that the process of finding permanent new homes for survivors has been “desperately slow” due to the lack of available housing.

The council last night said that just 37 families had moved into permanent homes, six months on from the fire.

The majority of survivors are still in emergency accommodation, with 103 households in hotels.

Of those, 29 have at least one child under 18. Eleven households are in serviced apartments and four are staying with friends.

It comes despite a council pledge that all those who wanted to move into new accommodation before Christmas would be able to do so.

Deputy council leader Kim Taylor-Smith told a meeting at the Notting Hill Methodist Church: “It’s desperately slow… we have not had the sufficient number of homes to offer to people.”

He said offers of permanent homes had been accepted by 82 former residents, and 57 have signed tenancy agreements and are waiting to move.

Inside Grenfell Tower

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The council is spending £235 million to buy properties in the borough for social rent. In the last week it exchanged contracts with 18 sellers on the private market.

Mr Taylor-Smith said he was “cautiously optimistic” that all the property deals would be signed off by Christmas.

The meeting also heard from NHS staff who warned of the increased risk of suicides over Christmas.

The daughter of one resident, a 66-year-old Eritrean refugee who had a flat on the 23rd floor but was away on the night of the fire, said she felt “penalised for being alive”.

She told the hearing: “My mum is going to be 67 on Tuesday and she is still in a hotel.

“She is a refugee who lost her home in Eritrea but the thing that has been most traumatic for us has been dealing with members of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, being taken from pillar to post.”

The council will give £2.5 million to around 80 community projects aiming to improve the well-being of survivors of the fire, which left 71 people dead.

Councillor Mary Weale said: “As Christmas approaches we have to be particularly concerned about suicide risks. Suicide prevention is not only about making sure people have access to the right services, but effectively identifying those at risk and focusing on them.”

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