Bangladeshis who survived London flat fire face homelessness during Eid

A group of Bangladeshis who escaped the 5 March fatal fire in an overcrowded flat in east London are facing homelessness from Monday (24 April) because they cannot find affordable housing.

Following the fire incident last month, the London borough of Tower has put up the survivors in hotels, but that support ended on Sunday (23 April) night, meaning that on the weekend of Eid, they face homelessness, reports The Guardian.

The survivors are among 18 students and workers of Bangladeshi origin that were squeezed into a two-bedroom flat in the Maddocks House council block in Shadwell.  On 5 March, an e-bike battery caught fire last month, killing Mizanur Rahman, who only days earlier had moved into the flat that was packed with bunk beds.

More than a month after the fire incident, many of the men have nowhere to live. While some are citizens of France and Italy and so have the right to temporary accommodation, the majority do not.

"We are searching Zoopla, SpareRoom and we went to estate agents. There is nothing in the price range [we can afford], they need payslips for 12 months and references from the previous landlord. We haven't got a place. If we don't get a new place, maybe the town hall is a good place to sleep at night," said Namush Shahadat, 25, who arrived last year to study law at Hertfordshire University.

Many of the survivors are studying for degrees in law and business studies, while others work in catering and as delivery couriers for Uber Eats and Deliveroo. Several said they paid a private landlord £100 a week because they could not afford a conventional home, lacking deposits, references and salary records that landlords usually now demand in an overheated private rental market.

The overcrowded flat that caught fire was licensed for five occupants, but residents said as many as 22 were squeezed in, sometimes having to sleep two to a single bed or on the bathroom floor.

"This was worse than slums in Bangladesh. In slums, you might be sharing with two to three people, but I had eight people in this room – sometimes more than 10," added Shahadat, showing his arms covered with bed bug scars from mattresses he said the landlord had dragged off the street.

The law student said the landlord "was making so much money on the flat and he could have installed some safety measures – some fire blankets or a fire extinguisher. There was none of that. I think the smoke alarm was faulty, too."

Nazmul Chowdhury, 27, who is studying international business, arrived from Sylhet in October 2022. As a student, he can work only 20 hours a week and from his jobs in McDonald's and Subway he makes about £180 a week. The average private rent in the borough is £2,560 a month (most likely a two-bed flat in that area), up 33% since 2021, according to Hamptons.

Nazmul said that at first, he slept on the floor, paying £90 a week.

"The landlord rented out the kitchen [floor] for one or two nights. I haven't seen that in Bangladesh. It's worse. It's a humiliation. We weren't allowed to use the washing machine or the heaters. 21, 22 people using the same toilet … It was so dirty," he added.

London Borough of Tower Hamlets said it has spent £100,000 on hotels and cash payments for the survivors and has "done what we can to help signpost tenants to find alternative accommodation".

"We recognise the extremely difficult situation the survivors of the Maddocks House fire have been faced with and have done our utmost to ensure they have been supported. We have made sure that everyone has been informed ahead of time regarding the arrangements for the hotel. We have been in regular contact with the survivors and provided as much notice as possible, so they have time to find their own accommodation ahead of the hotel booking end date," a spokesperson for the council said.

However, some said they could not understand why the council had spent so much on hotels when that cash could have helped them pay deposits and rent for several months.

The council, which is responsible for housing enforcement, is meanwhile running a criminal investigation into the case. It has already admitted it had received complaints about the flat as early as September 2021.

Overcrowding was a cause of problems, with flooding due to overuse of the bathroom.

The council leader, Lutfur Rahman, who returned to power as mayor of the borough in May 2022, also launched an independent inquiry, saying the case was "symptomatic of a catastrophically broken housing market and the greed of rogue landlords that it encourages".