Maxine Holdsworth, the official responsible for rehousing the people who lost their homes in the Grenfell Tower fire, is uneasy about the number of survivors of the tragedy who remain stuck in hotels.

Four-fifths of those made homeless have yet to be found a permanent home, leaving many in temporary flats or staying with family; 105 households – around half of those displaced by the disaster – are preparing to spend the holiday period in hotels, six months after the fire.

“Mental health services agree it is not great to be living in a hotel for that period of time. You don’t have enough space; the temporary nature of it makes it a difficult place to start to recover,” Holdsworth said, acknowledging the importance of moving people quickly into permanent places.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Maxine Holdsworth, of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s housing department. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

There have been a number of deadlines for rehousing those affected: from Theresa May’s unachievable commitment, made in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, to get them into new homes within three weeks, to the current promise that everyone will be rehoused within a year.

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Holdsworth hopes more will be out of hotels before Christmas. “What is a commitment from us is that absolutely everybody will have an opportunity to move out of a hotel before Christmas if they want to,” she said. “I would be very disappointed if anyone who had told their housing officer they want to move hasn’t been able to move. We would rather there was no one in hotels at Christmas.”

Inside the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s (RBKC) housing department, it is clear that every effort is being made to find new homes for survivors. The number of staff working on rehousing Grenfell tenants has quadrupled since the summer, from five to 20. Staff have been given a budget of £235m to replace the homes lost in the tower. They are currently in the process of buying 300 new homes, at a rate of two a day, and hope to have done that by Christmas. Given that Kensington and Chelsea is one of the most expensive places in Britain to buy property, this has been a massive undertaking.

The rehousing process is extraordinarily difficult, and being conducted in the glare of critical political and public scrutiny. Council staff have been criticised by ministers, who reported that they needed to show “a greater degree of humanity”. The communities and local government secretary, Sajid Javid, said: “There are families who desperately want a new home but for whom progress has been painfully slow.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A memorial to victims of the Grenfell fire, with the shell of the tower visible in the background. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

For months, the council’s response to questions about the slow pace of getting people into housing has been to point out that they are dealing with a very traumatised group of people who may not be ready to make critical decisions about where they want to spend the rest of their lives. While this is certainly true, many of those looking for new homes have been irritated by the implication that their indecision is what’s causing the delay.

Holdsworth, who was housing director for housing needs and strategy in Islington, was sent to RBKC in the days after the fire to help out and has stayed because this “feels more important to me personally than what I was doing”. She accepts that the process will take time because no one wants to force people to live in places they don’t like, and because buying new places and drawing up rental agreements takes time.

Staff are negotiating simultaneously on hundreds of flat purchases in North Kensington: old and new, one-beds, three-beds, “as many gardens as we can get”. Some people don’t want to be in a high-rise (“but 37% are happy to be above level three,” Holdsworth said). Most want to return to near Grenfell, but some survivors are unsure whether they can go back and are waiting until the tower is covered up – probably in March – before deciding. Holdsworth does not know if or when the tower will be demolished but is assuming that families will not have to move off the estate again when that happens.

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“We don’t want people to feel that people have been pushed into decisions,” she said. “It is the most challenging job I’ve ever done and it feels like it really matters.” The first hurdle is to rebuild confidence in their department – eroded in the years before the disaster and further shaken in the chaotic immediate response. Because some of the homes offered in the immediate aftermath of the fire were not appropriate, the council’s housing team lost the trust of some of the survivors and are still working hard to rebuild it.

Holdsworth said: “There are trust issues with the council. In order to meet the government’s commitment that everyone was offered a home within three weeks, lots of the stuff that was offered wasn’t what was wanted. There were a lot of people [who] didn’t like what they were offered and didn’t move. The offers we make now are tailored to what people actually want and need. But the trust in the council is still very low. I understand that.”

The council has a housing waiting list for social housing of around 2,700 normally, and people can remain on that list for many years; ordinarily only 450 social housing properties become available in Kensington and Chelsea every year. The Grenfell disaster has inevitably pushed those on the waiting list further down – although families in need of emergency accommodation will still be housed. Once all the purchases and rental contracts have been finalised, the council hopes to increase its overall stock of housing.

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Halfway though the interview in the council headquarters, the weekly fire alarm test takes place, with a loud announcement instructing stuff to leave the building by the nearest exit. “Do not use the lifts,” an automated announcement blares. It is an uncomfortable reminder that fire alarms were not effective in Grenfell tower, and fire drills rarely happened. Holdsworth looks tired and very sad.

Her colleague, a senior housing officer (who asked not to be named), said the process had been gruelling for staff who knew almost all the surviving residents of Grenfell and many of the dead.

“We’re dealing with residents who have gone through a very traumatic experience, we are dealing with the onslaught from the social media, from the media. No one has ever worked in an environment like this before. These people haven’t become homeless because of rent arrears or a breakdown in family relationship; they have lost their homes because of a tragedy. You’re not just putting a roof over people’s heads, you’re dealing with all the emotions as well – why did this happen, what have I lost?” she said.

“We are all going through this together. It has been traumatising for everyone. Our job now is to make sure that residents get the home that they feel comfortable in so that they can start to rebuild their lives as best they can.”