Excuseer mijn syntaxis als deze een beetje verkeerd is, maar ik zou waarschijnlijk zoiets proberen.
SELECT people.id,
people.avatar,
people.firstname,
people.lastname,
LEFT(msg.message, 90) AS message,
msg.seen,
msg.date
FROM people
INNER JOIN (SELECT message, seen, date, sender_id
FROM messages GROUP By sender_id
ORDER By date DESC LIMIT 1) msg
ON people.id = msg.sender_id
WHERE reciever_id = '". $user_data['id'] ."'