Only one person had been granted emergency financial support by the Home Office’s Windrush hardship fund by the end of last year, according to the latest summary of the government’s progress in resolving the fallout from the scandal.

The news was met with dismay by those campaigning for better treatment of those affected by the Home Office’s handling of Windrush cases.

The number of people who have died after being wrongly detained or removed from the UK has increased to 17, the home secretary, Sajid Javid, revealed in his monthly update on the work of the Windrush taskforce. Officials are still trying to trace a further 21 people they believe they wrongly removed from the UK.

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The Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee, said she was disappointed that the hardship fund had issued only one grant. “This is very disturbing,” she said. “For the special hardship fund only to have helped one person by the end of last year is shocking.

“There have been too many delays setting up the hardship scheme in the first place, and the compensation scheme still isn’t in place. Given that we know the pressure many Windrush families have faced as a result of Home Office failures and mistakes, the government should be providing far more support, far more swiftly than this.”

The committee recommended last June that a hardship fund should be set up to help those people facing becoming destitute, severely in debt or homeless as a result of the government’s decision to classify them as illegal immigrants, preventing them from working or receiving benefits.

“Only in October did the home secretary concede that one may be needed, and only in December was the ‘urgent and exceptional support’ process up and running. By the end of the year only one application out of 16 for support had been approved, and five declined,” Cooper said.

Compensation has been promised to all those affected, but the scheme to award payments has not yet been launched.

Vernon Vanriel, 63, who was flown back to London by the government in the autumn, after 13 years stuck in Jamaica trying to return to the UK, the country he had lived in for 43 years since the age of six, said he was still waiting for a decision on his request for a hardship payment.

He has no winter clothes, and had asked for help buying a winter coat and shoes. He is currently living with his retired sister, receiving disability benefit which he shares with her to cover his living costs. “If it wasn’t for my sister I don’t know what I would do. I’ve got no warm clothes, I’m ill. It is making life extremely difficult,” he said. “I’m very disappointed.”

Officials have taken calls from 6,603 people who believe they have been affected by Windrush-related immigration issues. More than 4,000 people have been issued with some form of documentation allowing them to remain in the UK, and 3,406 people have received citizenship.

The lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie, who is helping a large number of people affected by Windrush issues, said she knew of several people who were in desperate need of financial support.

“By definition, a hardship fund should operate swiftly and with compassion. It exists to help people who have been made destitute as a direct result of their experiences with the Home Office. These delays are aggravating people’s pain and suffering and are really inexplicable,” she said.