Grenfell mother staying in hotel fears for regressing son
Tomassina Hessell and her four-year-old son are still living in a hotel room 10 months after Grenfell fire.
Ms Hessell did not live within Grenfell Tower but in a flat within the area still cordoned off for safety reasons, so can no longer live in her residence.
Following the fire she was given a hotel room and she is still there almost one year later.
Now Ms Hessell believes staying in a hotel room is having a negative impact on her young child, who she believes is now regressing.
Ms Hessell told ITV London: "I'm very worried worried. Initially, I knew it wasn't going to be good for him, but I thought it would be a short period of time and as they kept extending the dates, I thought 'OK, Christmas, Christmas will be a deadline I can handle', but as it keeps going on, and it's nearly a year now, I can see impacts, such as what I think is regression; he's using baby language, which he never did before, he was always articulate, he's using shorter sentences, whereas he was using more complex ones, so that's vocabulary.
"In terms of emotional independence, he's really regressed; he can't fall asleep without me, he's waking up at night, he's having nightmares.
How many residents have been rehoused?
The original 138 households have split into 211 households.
194 out of the 211 have now accepted an offer of a home.
135 of these have moved in - 65 into an interim home, 70 into a permanent home.
The council has committed over £235m to secure 307 homes.
Only 27 households from the surrounding estate are in emergency accommodation
Number of households with children from the tower in emergency is now 20, 13 in hotels and 7 in serviced apartments
A Kensington and Chelsea Council spokesperson said: "We have staff working around the clock, doing everything they can to rehouse families as quickly as possible and support them in rebuilding their lives. We have already spent £235m to secure 307 homes, so that people have maximum choice available."