The Prince of Wales gave a candid interview during his documentary series Prince William: We Can End Homelessness
Prince William has admitted that he feels ‘nervous’ about the monumental task of ending UK homelessness
Sometimes, the royal family can seem so magisterial in their duties – never complaining, never explaining – that we can forget how they face the stresses, strains, and responsibilities that come with any major project in the public eye. But Prince William has revealed that the sheer scope of combatting homelessness, a cause to which he has dedicated his life, leaves him feeling nervous.
The Prince of Wales made the highly personal confession in part two of his documentary, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, which aired this week on ITV. The show follows the first year of William’s charity, Homewards, as it carries out the start of its five-year plan to eradicate homelessness in the UK. A monumental task, of course, and the royal told the documentary that he was all too aware of its magnitude.
‘I think I’m feeling optimistic. I’m feeling enthusiastic,’ Prince William said, before admitting that ‘I’m nervous about the challenge and scale of what we’re going to do, and [the] last thing you want to do is start something that you can’t finish.’ He then outlined what it was that he aims to achieve with Homewards, speaking with candour and honesty.
‘I’m not sitting here saying I’m going to sort of, you know, solve the entire world’s homelessness problems,’ he said. ‘But I am going to show people how to prevent homelessness: Providing high-quality temporary accommodation that will lead on a pathway to more permanent accommodation, allowing people to thrive, prosper, rebuild their lives and go on to be a part of the community and feel like they belong somewhere. And that is crucial.’
Ending homelessness has long been a cause close to Prince William’s heart, and his recent documentary explored how his work with Homewards was inspired by his mother, Princess Diana. The late Princess of Wales was a patron of numerous homelessness support charities, and Prince William recalled the lasting impact he felt after joining his mother on one of her charitable visits to Westminster-based charity The Passage in 1993, when he was aged just 11.
‘My mother took me to the Passage, she took Harry and I both there… I’d never been to anything like that before and I was a bit anxious as to what to expect,’ the future King explained. ‘My mother went about her usual part of making everyone feel relaxed and having a joke with everyone … you meet people, like I did then, who put a different perspective in your head.’
Prince William and Princess Diana can be seen visiting The Passage in London in these previously unseen pictures released
Alongside the story, audiences were shown a series of never-seen-before photographs from the excursion. In one, a young Prince William sits and plays chess with a beneficiary of The Passage, and in another he stands with his mother Princess Diana alongside two chefs as they prepare meals for those living without a home.
This personal insight shocked many royal watchers, not for the unseen photographs, but because it marked the first time that the Prince of Wales had publicly named his brother for six years. The two have not spoken in years, following the shock allegations that Prince Harry made about William and the Princess of Wales in his 2023 memoir Spare.
One photograph shows William playing chess during his first visit to the centre as an 11-year-old
Ahead of the release of Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, the Prince of Wales might have made one surprise step towards mending his rift with the Duke of Sussex
Elaborating on how it felt to continue his mother’s legacy, Prince William confessed in the documentary that she ‘would’ve thought I was probably mad to start off Homewards.’ But then explained what it means to follow in her footsteps. ‘What I want to see, and I think she would want to see, is action and movement and change,’ William explained. ‘[M]y mother introduced me to homelessness a long time ago, and it’s something that had a deep resonation with me. Not just because of the moments I had, but because of the connection I felt.’
While his trip to The Passage may have ignited William’s passion for philanthropy, he revealed that Princess Diana had been educating both him and Prince Harry from an even younger age. The royal brothers were 10 or 11 years old, Prince William said, when Diana would speak to them about homelessness – conversations that he said had a ‘big impact’ on him as a child.
The photographs, which were taken on two separate visits to the centre, show Diana and William meeting members of the homeless community and staff at The Passage
While the upper echelons of modern British politics remain leaky as sieves, Sir Graham is the notable exception – or at least he has been, until now
And now, the Prince of Wales is passing on Princess Diana’s lessons to his own children, and like his mother did with him, he has been educating Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis while on the school run. The Wales children are currently studying at Lambrook School, and William said he would simply answer any questions that his children had when they saw a person sleeping on the street.
‘The first few times I thought “do I bring this up or should I wait to see if they notice?” – sure enough, they did,’ the Prince remarked. ‘They were sort of in silence when I said what was going on.’ He added: ‘I do think it is really important that you start these conversations when the children are small so they understand the world around them, rather than just living in their own worlds.’
A touching insight into how the future king sees his mother’s legacy, and perhaps even into how he sees his own. Despite the nervousness and anxieties Prince William might be feeling, his commitment to the cause was clear in the documentary: ‘There has to be a better way than just accepting that homelessness is there and we just live with it,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe that, and I don’t — I won’t accept that.’
