Homeless Grenfell Tower fire survivors hit out and say ‘we’re the forgotten people’ after investigation reveals only 24 of the 158 surviving families have been rehomed
SITTING on the bed in her tiny 11th-floor hotel room, Grenfell Tower survivor Hanife Macit says she is too scared even to look out of the window.
Her husband Senor still wakes from nightmares, gasping for air on the floor, trying to escape imaginary smoke in the belief he is back in the inferno.
Days after an inquiry opened into the horror blaze, he told us: “We feel like we are the forgotten people with nowhere to call home.”
During the June 14 fire which killed at least 80 people in the West London tower block, the Macits doused themselves in water and fled from the 16th-floor flat where they had lived for the last 25 years.
More than two months on, they are among around 200 homeless former residents holed up in hotels, waiting to be rehomed by the council.
Senor, a driver who has been too stressed to work since the tragedy, said: “Hotels are for people who are on holiday.
"We don’t want a holiday, we want a home.
“We lost everything apart from my passport and phone. I hope this inquiry gets to the bottom of what happened but surely getting us back on our feet should be the priority.”
Today a Sun on Sunday probe into Britain’s worst fire since World War Two can reveal of the 158 surviving families only 24 have been rehomed.
This is despite Prime Minister Theresa May vowing all would be in new homes within three weeks.
The council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, has spent tens of millions on 100 new properties to house survivors and has made 177 offers of new housing. It has said every household who wanted it has had at least one offer of a property.
But only 65 have been accepted and 24 households rehoused, according to latest figures from the Grenfell Tower Response Team.
This is due to many new homes being in tower blocks miles away from old communities or unsuitable for their needs.
Deputy leader of the council, Cllr Kim Taylor-Smith, said yesterday: “We have prioritised bereaved families and made offers to all of them.
“This week we opened the Choice Based Letting system that allows the remaining 158 families from the Tower to express an interest in the 104 properties available.”
But residents see this as having to “bid” against each other.
Cllr Taylor-Smith added: “As of this morning, 146 of those 158 families have logged on to the system and 93 have expressed an interest on one or more of the properties.”
It emerged this week that the survivors will not have to pay rent for a year.
This will apply if some of that year is spent in temporary accommodation, or if residents have moved to a new home.
But most former tenants are still in council-funded hotel rooms.
A source close to the council confirmed: “The large numbers of people in hotels is not acceptable.”
A spokesman for North Kensington Law Centre, which is assisting 150 of the homeless, said: “It’s extremely concerning that so many survivors from the fire are still sitting in hotels waiting to be rehoused.
“Some have been offered flats with leaks and damp, some have been offered unsuitable homes in high-rise blocks, and others asked to sign poor-quality leases.
"Grenfell survivors are traumatised and grieving. They just want to get back on their feet and try to put their lives back together.”
This month retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick opened the public inquiry into the fire. Its first hearing is due on September 14.
The blaze tore through the 43-year-old building after a faulty fridge on the fourth floor is thought to have caught fire.
The flames then spread to the cladding on the tower’s exterior.
We don't want a reward — just our own homes
This week The Sun on Sunday visited the area of West London where the shell of Grenfell Tower dominates the skyline.
Ten minutes’ walk away, in the four-star Copthorne Tara Hotel, waiter Antonio Roncolato and his son Chris, 26, spoke from the room where they have been housed by the council at an estimated cost of £15,000 since the fire.
Antonio, 57, was asleep in their tenth-floor flat when Chris called saying the building was alight.
He said: “I tried to go out the front door but black smoke was everywhere. I knew I had to stay inside.
“For five hours I was like a cat in a cage, running around trying to stay alive. Smoke was coming in.
I was eventually saved by the fire brigade.”
Antonio, who lost everything he owned, is desperate to get a new home so he can rebuild his life.
He said: “The Government put pressure on the council to rehouse people within three weeks at the beginning and it caused problems.
“They offered unsuitable flats and then say we refused them. It’s causing a lot of upset.
“We are frustrated, stressed, living in these small spaces, not able to cook or make much noise.
“I want transparency from the inquiry — why did the fire start? Why did it spread so quickly?
"This should not be allowed to happen in a civilised country. It’s a crime, but it must never be able to happen again.
“But more than anything else I want a place to call home again.”
The Macits are in the nearby Hilton Hotel. In tears, Hanife said: “We lost everything, including treasured photographs. We feel like we are living in limbo. No one cares.”
Senor added: “The council give us £300 a week for food so it’s not awful, but we are Muslim so don’t eat everything on the room service menu.
“We have been eating Caesar salads, risottos and chips for two months unless we go out to places that do Halal meat, which are not always easy to find.”
They have been living in the same small hotel room since June 18.
Their few newly-acquired possessions are stacked neatly at the side, making it seem even more cramped.
They estimate it will have cost the council around £12,000 to have housed them for two months.
Senor said: “I have nightmares and my wife talks in her sleep as if she’s back in the tower.
“We can’t open our room’s windows and she hates going near them. It makes her feel claustrophobic.
“The council have offered accommodation but it’s in a high-rise, or it has a lift that we’d have to use.
“We told them because of my wife’s fear of small spaces created by the fire, we don’t want these things, yet that is all the council offers us.”
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Grenfell resident Hannah West’s life was saved by her five-year-old daughter Thea, who woke her during the fire.
They are in a four-star Kensington hotel as the council has yet to find them suitable accommodation.
Hannah, 23, said: “It feels like things are moving on but we’re staying still.
"Hopefully the council will get us somewhere suitable soon.”
Kensington and Chelsea council is spending around £1,000 a week on temporary housing for each family.
It also approved a rehousing package which includes £40million to buy homes from private social housing providers and £20million to buy homes on the open market.
At least £16.5million was pledged to reimburse those who owned flats in the tower or nearby Grenfell Walk, who have also had to leave their homes.
The council also bought 68 homes for displaced residents in a £2billion Kensington Row estate.
Key numbers
- 80 people - at least - are believed to have died
- 255 residents escaped
- 250 firefighters battled the fire
- Just 24 families rehoused
Many Grenfell survivors might feel they have been forgotten but the victims are still very much in the nation’s thoughts.
At this weekend’s Notting Hill Carnival revellers will pay their respects to the 80 victims of the blaze with a minute’s silence at 3pm both today and Monday.
A flock of doves will be released as the Carnival opens today as a “small act of remembrance”.
Meanwhile the displaced Grenfell community continues to pull together.
A WhatsApp group has been set up for more than 200 residents to stay in touch.
One mum, who did not wish to be named, told us: “We’ve all been through hell and back.
“We are not asking for a reward, we don’t want heaps of compensation. We just want a community we feel happy in again, and our own homes.”