Prince William ahead of the launch of Homewards - a five-year programme to demonstrate that it is possible to end homelessness in the UK. Photo / Getty Images
Prince William ahead of the launch of Homewards - a five-year programme to demonstrate that it is possible to end homelessness in the UK. Photo / Getty Images
The Prince of Wales is set to unveil a plan to eradicate homelessness, as he makes it his life’s work to ensure that “everyone has a safe and secure home”.
Homewards is an ambitious programme that aims to put six pilot locations on a path towards ending homelessness within five years.
The prince, who will embark on a tour of all six areas on Monday, hopes that the pilot projects will create blueprints that can be adopted by any town or city, eventually ensuring that homelessness in the UK becomes “rare, brief, and unrepeated”.
He aims to continue the work of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who was patron of homelessness charity Centrepoint and regularly helped people living on the streets, as well as build his own legacy.
Diana, Princess Of Wales, with Prince William. Photo / Getty Images
Ahead of the launch, the prince said: “In a modern and progressive society, everyone should have a safe and secure home, be treated with dignity and given the support they need.
“Through Homewards, I want to make this a reality and over the next five years give people across the UK hope that homelessness can be prevented when we collaborate.”
William first visited a homeless shelter in December 1993, aged 11, when Diana took him and Prince Harry to The Passage, a charity supporting people who are newly homeless.
Homewards marks his first major announcement as Prince of Wales, and forms a cornerstone of his work – on a par with his Earthshot Prize, a £1 million ($2m) grant awarded to five winners each year for their contributions to environmentalism – and will be a priority for the rest of his life.
A Kensington Palace spokesman said the prince had been involved in “every step” of its development over the past two years and was intimately involved in driving it forward.
Homewards will use the Royal Foundation’s convening power to bring charities, local authorities and social services together to create “systemic change” and focus on preventing homelessness, rather than placing people in temporary accommodation.
The focus will be on providing permanent homes, meaning that each location will be expected to deliver an innovative housing project. The Royal Foundation will pump an initial £500,000 seed funding into each area.
It will help create local coalitions of those already working on the ground to boost understanding of specific issues and how to overcome them, providing access to experts and, crucially, to financial backers to unlock new ideas and drive further investment.
The foundation will also appoint a local leader in each area who will bring together all those pivotal to forcing change, from local authorities to prisons, schools and housing associations.
They will each deliver a tailored plan to prevent homelessness in their area, based on their own unique needs.
Among those on board are 16 leading charities as well as support from beyond the sector, from landowners and local housing associations to major retailers.
The prince believes that by bringing organisations together to collectively address local challenges, homelessness can be prevented.
In a short video about the programme, released by Kensington Palace on Monday, the prince states that he is launching Homewards “to show that it is possible to end homelessness” in the UK.
Such an approach has never before been adopted in Britain, where local authorities spend billions keeping homeless people in temporary accommodation and do not have the capacity to address the broader issues.
Experts say that for decades, homelessness has been “managed” rather than prevented, with victims trapped in a cycle and the problem exacerbated by a severe lack of social housing.
William chats with Homeward advocates Tyrone Mings, Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, Gail Porter and David Duke in Windsor ahead of the launch. Photo / Kensington Palace via Getty Images
Speaking ahead of the launch, William said: “I am fortunate to have seen first-hand the tireless work of people and organisations across the sector, the tangible impact their efforts can have and what can be done when communities are able to focus on preventing homelessness, rather than managing it.
“It’s a big task, but I firmly believe that by working together it is possible to make homelessness rare, brief, and unrepeated and I am very much looking forward to working with our six locations to make our ambition a reality.”
The Royal Foundation has taken inspiration from Finland, which has all but erased homelessness with its hugely successful Housing First policy that prioritises getting people into their own homes before bringing together other organisations to address the broader issues.
The overwhelming response to the Everyone In scheme launched during the Covid-19 pandemic, a successful campaign to house all homeless people in hotels and shelters, also proved that sweeping change could be achieved and is said to have been the catalyst that propelled the prince to act.
