Tenants evacuated from dangerous Clarion tower block could wait a year to be rehoused

Inside Housing has now spoken to several residents who have voiced frustration at the rehousing effort and told Clarion that they do not want to move again.

Vicky Cunningham, who is happy with her current temporary accommodation, said: “They’re now saying it could take up to 12 months to find us new permanent homes.”

The family support worker said that Clarion waited three weeks to tell tenants to make housing register applications to Tower Hamlets Council and that the staff member who told her did not know how long the process took or why tenants were not told to do it straight away.

“They share information but they don’t understand the process themselves and all we get told is ‘we’ll look into that and update the FAQs’ and every time we get the FAQs it’s totally different information to what was on the previous one.

“This is why people are getting so frustrated with Clarion because we’re getting mixed information,” she said.

Carlton Boulter, who was moved to central London with his family, said: “We don’t want to be moved from pillar to post, we want to stay in the temporary accommodation that we’ve been given until we’re given another permanent home.”

Tower Hamlets Council, which operates a common housing register with Clarion, said that giving Clare House residents priority for the housing waiting list “will take some time due to the number of allocations and the size of accommodation required”.

Residents also raised concerns about the landlord’s initial response.

Nooraini Mydin said there was confusion about what residents had to do in the immediate aftermath of the evacuation. Ms Cunningham said there was “no organisation or process laid out”

“It was literally [a matter of] waiting at home for someone to call to say ‘we’ve got this location for you’,” she said.

Ms Cunningham said that at every meeting Clarion “moved the goal posts or reneged on something they agreed to in a previous meeting”.

“They said they would cover the cost for mail redirection and cancellation fees for accounts but we now have to use our disturbance payment to cover these expenses,” she said.

Erin Robinson, who is chairing the newly formed tenants and residents association, said that the communication from Clarion has been “poor” and added that the association did “not follow through on their promises to include residents or a resident representative in all meetings regarding the situation”.

Residents have also complained that they have been refused sight of Arup’s full fire and safety reports by Clarion. A letter from the engineering consultant and a brief presentation is all they have seen so far.

Mr Boulter, who is a senior project manager, said that Clarion at first said it would not share the reports because “they’re too difficult to understand”.

He added: “But then when I pointed out to them that my day-to-day job is looking at these reports in Whitehall and there are other people there with PhDs and masters of science, they got a bit worried and just said their board has taken the decision not to share these reports and they will not share these reports.”

Rachel Blake, deputy mayor at Tower Hamlets Council and Bow East councillor, told Inside Housing she has urged Clarion to ensure that residents are involved and informed throughout the process.

“Residents really want transparency around the technical reports available and visibility of information in the run-up to the decision because there had been a waking watch on site,” Ms Blake said.

In September, Clarion said it was making changes to its executive team in an effort to improve the way it interacts with residents after the ITV coverage about the appalling conditions in which tenants at the Eastfields Estate were living.

Clare Miller, chief executive of Clarion, said in an email to staff that the situation had shown that there was clearly a minority of residents that found Clarion “frustrating and challenging” to deal with and that the organisation “needed to do better” at engaging with its residents.

A spokesperson for Clarion said: “Clarion is working on a bespoke basis with every household that has moved out of Clare House.

“We are providing accommodation, financial support and access to other services in the community, including Mind, a leading mental health charity.

“By moving people out of the building we put the safety and well-being of our residents first. In addition, we have made the professional advice we received from Arup available to all residents of Clare House.

“This is the key piece of information and it was on this advice that Clarion made the decision to safely decant the building.

“Our team is working hard to provide suitable permanent accommodation for every household.”

The spokesperson said the search is in the context of an “acute housing crisis”, adding: “We will do everything we can to find the right home for every resident, who will also receive financial compensation and adjustment payments totalling £10,100 per household.”