MORE than 100 households are still homeless nearly two years after the Grenfell Tower fire, their local MP told the Morning Star today in an exclusive interview.

Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad said it was “appalling” that there were 128 households from the tower block and its immediate vicinity whose lives were ruined by the blaze but still need permanent housing.

Nineteen households from the tower and a low-rise block attached to it, along with 109 from nearby blocks on the same estate, have yet to be permanently rehoused, she said.

Four people have taken their own lives since the fire 22 months ago, including someone Ms Dent Coad personally knew, she added.

She said the trauma inflicted on the community has been so severe that “I don’t know how people get through a day.”

Noting that many of the families waiting to be rehoused are staying in overcrowded temporary accommodation, the Labour MP warned that their mental health problems are not being properly addressed.

She recalled a local Tory councillor infuriating her by saying: “I don’t know why we’re spending so much on mental health — they seem fine to me.”

Ms Dent Coad also voiced concern about Grenfell aid not reaching the affected people but being spent on “layers and layers of management.”

She also questioned the design of the Grenfell inquiry and felt it was unfair to put the firefighters up for questioning first.

“It exposed them for things that weren’t their fault and they came in for a lot of criticism, which was very difficult for everybody,” the MP said.

The inquiry has still not appointed panel members with diverse life experience to review the evidence, despite promising to do so in response to a petition signed by millions of people.

Ms Dent Coad warned: “It will probably be a couple of years before they charge people.

“My feeling is people will be charged, and they should be, whether that will be corporations or individuals — at least charged with manslaughter at some level.

“But the speed of it is a huge frustration — people want to know the truth, however painful. People feel they aren’t getting that, which is disgraceful.”

Ms Dent Coad is currently briefing her fellow MPs in preparation for a back-bench debate in the Commons planned for the coming weeks.

She said it had taken nearly a year to persuade enough Tory MPs to sign up for the debate, although some are “fed up with government inaction.”