ABOUT five weeks after a fire destroyed the 24-story Grenfell Tower in London, killing at least 80 people, residents are asking why only a small fraction of the money raised for the victims has been distributed.
“Where is the money?” residents shouted during a meeting with the local government on Tuesday at the Notting Hill Methodist Church. “It’s not reaching us.”
Less than 6 per cent of volunteered goods, including clothes and bedding, has reached residents who lost their homes, and only £800,000 (RM4.46 million) of at least £20 million (US$26 million) raised through charities and private fundraising have been handed out so far, according to a BBC investigation published this week.
The Kensington and Chelsea Foundation, a local charity, has received £5.1 million in donations and distributed £120,000 to local organisations and £60,000 pounds.
It attributed the delays to the need to make sure that the money was going only to those eligible for assistance.
David Holdsworth, registrar and chief operating officer at the Charity Commission, which has been helping to coordinate the efforts of various groups collecting aid, said the victims now had “a clear and simple way to access the funds”, but he acknowledged that some had not yet done so, perhaps because they were still suffering shock and grief.
“We are now seeing an increase in applications for charity funds, and we expect that to continue and for dispersals to those affected to continue to increase,” he said.
Questions about the speed and effectiveness of the response by charities came after widespread complaints about the lacklustre and uneven performance of the local government, the Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council.
Shortly after the fire, the central government stripped the council, which owns the building, of its power over the response, and several of the council’s officials have resigned.
The foundation, which works with the council, but is independent of it, said the organisation had faced delays in its effort to ensure that the money was reaching the right people.
“Further cash grants are being processed, and all of the funds raised will go to the families and community that has been affected,” it said in a statement.
The government has also pledged £5,500 in emergency funds for every household whose home was lost in the fire.
But, frustrated residents say they have not been consulted about how the donated money should be distributed.
“We lost everything and we all have different needs, but no one is really asking us what those needs are,” said Eva Levi, whose son is listed among the missing.
Yvonne Harris, another resident, insisted that the money should be distributed evenly among survivors from the tower’s 129 apartments.
“Who is distributing the money?” she asked last Friday at a news conference organised by grassroots groups.
The room was filled with boxes of donations separated into categories by local volunteers in West London.
“We’re still wondering where the council is,” Micah Frizzie, a volunteer, said.
“We’re just looking after our own, but that’s fine because who’s better prepared to do it than us?”
Members of the community were angered after the council asked people to stop donating goods, saying there was “more than enough”.
“The survivors of the fire visit the donations space every day, and they have never asked them to stop collecting, they have never said, ‘That’s enough,” said Niles Hailstones, the chairman of Westway23, a community group.
The local council has asked the British Red Cross to sell any additional clothing that is donated for fire victims, and to distribute the cash proceeds to people affected by the fire.
But, residents have expressed doubts about that plan. “The council shouldn’t be allowed to make these decisions on our behalf,” Levi said.
“We’ve lost so much trust in them, and it’s hard to trust them now when there is no transparency in this process.”
Ceylan Yeginsu is a London-based reporter for The New York Times. She was previously a correspondent for the Turkey bureau, covering politics, migrant crisis, and the rise of Islamic State extremism in Syria and the region.