One of my craziest royal opinions is that Prince William actually does care about homelessness and he’s actually trying to find some smaller, local solutions to issues around homelessness. Everything around “William + homelessness” is completely bonkers though. For one, the British media HATES when William toots his own “Homeless Savior” horn, and they regularly and correctly call him out as a dilettante on this issue. Secondly, William overpromises and underdelivers – he claims he’s “solving homelessness” and then he’s shocked when those claims get thrown back in his face with hard data. What he’s actually doing isn’t so bad – creating new low-income housing on a small scale, funding smaller projects in targeted localities – it’s just that he behaves as if he’s god’s gift to homeless people and he speaks and acts like he’s doing a lot more than he really is.
Add to all of that, William’s personal decisions and lifestyle ruins what little credibility he might have on these issues. Same with his environmental work – it’s difficult to take him seriously as an environmentalist OR homeless advocate when he has four homes and he’s publicly lobbying for a whole-ass fort, not to mention all of the private planes, the endless helicopter usage and, most recently, the vacation on a megayacht. Oh, and he’s on his seventh vacation of the year. Well, guess who’s got a brand new homeless project? The announcement came just a day after his megayacht vacation was finally reported in the Daily Mail. The announcement also came during Willy’s summer vacation, so it’s not like he was there to do an event around this new thing:
Prince William is backing the building of new homes in an underserved part of London. The Prince of Wales, 43, has seen his project for the unhoused make new inroads into solving part of the problem with a new partnership that is set to help young homeless people.
His five-year Homewards mission aims to make homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated,” as William puts it. Operating across six areas of the U.K., it is trying locally-based innovations and ideas to combat the issue. Now, in Lambeth, south London, 16 new homes are set to be built in a partnership with his Duchy of Cornwall and the Centrepoint charity that William is patron of.
Lambeth is the third area to have new housing, following Aberdeen in Scotland and Sheffield in northern England. Homewards has also spearheaded the Duchy of Cornwall’s new housing project in Nansledan in Cornwall.
With planning approved, work is set to start soon on the conversion of an existing building into 16 independent living apartments for young people aged 18 to 25 in Lambeth. Homewards says it will “provide affordable homes that act as a bridge between supported accommodation and the private rented sector.”
The homes will be managed by Centrepoint, a charity with which William has been linked for most of his public life. It will be part of the charity’s Independent Living Programme, which aims to break the cycle of homelessness. The homes will be targeted at those young people already employed, and a number of the homes will be allocated to those moving towards employment, providing a vital test of a new model to get people into housing and jobs at the same time.
With the average monthly private rent in Lambeth around $3,000, affordable housing for young people trying to find employment or in their first jobs is at a premium. The charity’s chief executive, Seyi Obakin, said in a statement that Centrepoint was delighted to work with the Duchy and the local council on the housing project “to demonstrate that eradicating youth homelessness is achievable.”
“Centrepoint is committed to ending youth homelessness in the U.K., and we know that can only be achieved through collaborative effort. By linking rent to individual income levels, this Innovative Housing Project offers more than shelter — it offers young people the stepping stone they need to pursue their careers, build financial resilience, and transition out of homelessness for good.”
Again, if you just take these projects on their own, without any of William’s keen PR or his own words, the work is fine. It’s great to see smaller-scale projects dedicated to the creation of low-income housing, targeting the specific homeless youth demographic. Now, is it a little bit funny that William avoided making the announcement himself, in person, because he just got back from a vacation on a megayacht and now he’s on another vacation at his fourth home? Yes.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- The Prince of Wales with Grainia Long, Chief Executive at Northern Ireland Housing Executive, during a visit to the East Belfast Mission at the Skainos Centre, Belfast, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Belfast, United Kingdom When: 27 Jun 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to Tillydrone Community Campus, Aberdeen, to spotlight how co-located and joined up community support services can improve early intervention and prevent homelessness, as part of his tour of the UK to launch a project aimed at ending homelessness. Picture date: Tuesday June 27, 2023. Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Aberdeen, United Kingdom When: 27 Jun 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales, known as the Duke of Rothesay when in Scotland, with Homewards Advocate David Duke (right) during a visit to Homewards in Aberdeen, for a ‘Thank You’ event for workers from across the city’s homelessness sector Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Aberdeen, United Kingdom When: 19 Sep 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales, known as the Duke of Rothesay when in Scotland, during a ‘Thank You’ event hosted by Homewards Aberdeen for workers from across the city’s homelessness sector Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Aberdeen, United Kingdom When: 19 Sep 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales, known as the Duke of Rothesay when in Scotland, during a ‘Thank You’ event hosted by Homewards Aberdeen for workers from across the city’s homelessness sector Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Aberdeen, United Kingdom When: 19 Sep 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to Homewards Newport in Newport to hear about the local coalition’s approach to preventing women’s homelessness in the city, and unveil commitments from local organisations who have pledged their support Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: Newport, United Kingdom When: 20 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to Centrepoint in Ealing, west London to meet young people being supported by the charity. The centre in Ealing provides 17 beds for young people aged 16 to 25 experiencing homelessness, as well as support services such as employment opportunities and access to education and counselling to help users build an independent future. This year marks the 20th anniversary of William being a patron of Centrepoint, a youth homeless charity Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 21 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to Centrepoint in Ealing, west London to meet young people being supported by the charity. The centre in Ealing provides 17 beds for young people aged 16 to 25 experiencing homelessness, as well as support services such as employment opportunities and access to education and counselling to help users build an independent future. This year marks the 20th anniversary of William being a patron of Centrepoint, a youth homeless charity Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 21 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince of Wales during a visit to Centrepoint in Ealing, west London to meet young people being supported by the charity. The centre in Ealing provides 17 beds for young people aged 16 to 25 experiencing homelessness, as well as support services such as employment opportunities and access to education and counselling to help users build an independent future. This year marks the 20th anniversary of William being a patron of Centrepoint, a youth homeless charity Featuring: William, Prince of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 21 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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It’s a very worthy cause and I wish the project well. It’s a shame William couldn’t get off his arse and make a video to go along with the announcement. However, with W&K looking for another grand home to put in their portfolio I can’t help but, wonder about the timing of reminding the public of William’s involvement with Centrepoint.
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Well, if Kate couldn’t step away from the tennis court to make a video about her museum thingy, then why should we expect Bulliam to interrupt his ongoing vacation to put any effort into this?
Agree KP’s PR panic is strong here, even if their principals aren’t pulling their weight. This doesn’t feel like a new project, just a new announcement. Aren’t we due for another insipid nature video from Kate?
Lots of partners in Homewards providing funding, materials and labor. Anything PW gives is from his ill-gotten duchy gains that should be public money anyway, so that he can justify his own large amount used from what should be public money. Same with the “Prince’s/King’s Trust”.
William and Kate and their 5 homes, mega yacht vacations and Kate’s $70,000 and counting clothing bill really shouldn’t be trying to be the face of ending homelessness, but yet here we are. Just like William and his helicopter taxi, private jets and frequent jaunts abroad to watch football shouldn’t be the face of environmentalism.
Surely, now, they’re totally discredited?
Incredibly hard to even take this man seriously on any topic because of his ostentatious lifestyle.
Him and McButtins remind me of spoilt, overpriveledged kids who start learning an extra curricular project or hobby, get the bright and shiny uniform at great cost, pay an extortionate joining fee, and upfront tutorial costs, go once and then bin it.
The fees for their “hobbies” are being paid by taxpayer which is even morally reprehensible.
It does not sound that there was a special event. It looks like it was an announcement thrown out to deflect from the seventh holiday of the year on a mega-yacht.
They are paddling back from “solving homelessness” to ” to make homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated,” “. Everything to help homeless people is a worthwhile cause.
Announced during the lavish yacht vacation. What a,phony.
All in the timing 😂
Yachts for the homeless?? I mean what’s the problem? if you don’t have a home just live on a yacht ( or your summer home).
After the yacht vacation reveal but also right after that Fort Belvedere story. The fact that they may move into another house is really what’s at odds with the announcement of this initiative.
I believe that whatever Peg does it’s in direct correlation with his hate for all Harry does and accomplishes. However Peg, in his constant need to outdo his brother, sometimes gets one right and this is the case with this small project. Kaiser is right though that he is over selling it as something bigger but it’s not.
It’s performative. Harry does it hands-on, Willy? Well, yes, I’ll revisit homelessness while enjoying this Greek island freebie yacht.
“His five-year Homewards mission aims to make homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated.”
Can the taxpayer make his Uber choppers, yachts and holidays rare, brief and unrepeated?
Also, turn over one of their many homes to the homeless. They are not there all the time.
Five years!!! Willie’s going to work on solving homelessness in just five years?? Never mind that it’s been a problem for decades. 🤦♀️
This is the issue with pretty much every project the Wales get involved with (which aren’t that many to be honest) – the projects themselves may be important and doing something that makes a difference for a small group, but the Wales’ PR acts like they’re the saviors of the movement or something
This seems like a good initiative and it will help some people – but its not going to solve homelessness. that’s fine – its going to help a small group of people and there’s nothing wrong with taking a smaller, more concrete approach to a problem like homelessness. but dont sell it as part of William’s campaign to end homelessness, because its not.
Yes, it’s the way they get fluffed up by the press and presumably their own pr. It makes it laughable when everything is constantly being called landmark. This article was actually okay at centering centrepoint rather than William. But after the press has already crowed that William is solving homelessness, it just makes whatever said afterwards an eye-roll.
I wonder, is this just a W&K thing? I haven’t followed Charles’ PoW years closely – but was he announcing grand initiatives all the time? I feel like he was just quietly doing this or that – and that all this aggrandizement of W&K come from the competition with H&M.
I don’t think so. I think its just a W&K thing. The King’s Trust gets a lot of puff pieces now but it has a track record to support those pieces, you know? We don’t get endless articles about how Charles is preparing to prepare. Maybe there was more when the duchy line started or something, but I feel like probably not?
I think W&K have to embiggen themselves because the work doesn’t do it for them. As much as we dislike him, Charles’ work as PoW stands on its own, from initiatives like the prince’s/king’s trust to his travel schedule to his daily engagements.
Bulliam seems to think he can get more, better, and cheaper publicity from doing a few “big issue” projects than from plugging away quietly behind the scenes like Charles did as POW.
Of course, the whole PR plan falls apart if the projects are mostly hot air and the sponsor is an eco-hypocrite with multiple huge homes and thirsting for a new castle. I mean, these 16 houses in London are a good thing, but everyone knows the partner orgs are doing most of the work and probably providing most of the financing. Plus if Bulliam really wants to “solve” homelessness, he needs to get his hands dirty with less sexy issues like mental illness and addiction that underlie a lot of homelessness. Things like working with teens are where Charles had some good initiatives.
Too bad Charles’ initiatives didn’t extend to working with his own teens.
If William is developing or repurposing duchy property, would he not ultimately profit from it in the end? It’s good that something is being done, but announcing a project while he is on holiday is just not a good look. Talk about giving phoning it in a new meaning! Diana made her boys aware of homelessness, and is the only issue of his mother’s that William seems to have picked up. Aids and landmines are issues that Harry works with and he seems to be a much more effective and harder working patron. Mental health, veterans, conservation, and online safety are among Harry’s other causes. One can also see interconnections between the issues that Harry works with. William’s work is so scatter-shot. To my mind, it’s because he is not really personally passionate about anything, and coupled with his seemingly innate laziness, there is just no real dedication to anything, unlike Harry. With Harry, you get the impression that all the balls he has in the air are continually spinning.
“but announcing a project while he is on holiday is just not a good look” Good to see W using the homeless to deflect from his 5th or 6th vacaay for the year.
Can you imagine what Harry and Meghan would have done with this effort? They would blow Willy’s feeble attempts out of the water.
And LOL at the timing … W&K just can’t get out of their own way, because they’re committed to one thing and one thing only: their vacation time.
“The homes will be targeted at those young people already employed, and a number of the homes will be allocated to those moving towards employment, providing a vital test of a new model to get people into housing and jobs at the same time.”
Wow, so a lot of the homeless youth in the UK have jobs? Because here in the US there are a lot of barriers for homeless kids, living on the streets: not being able to shower, wash their clothes, provide the cost of transportation, have somebody they trust to watch their belongings, not to mention issues with drugs, alcohol and/or untreated mental issues, etc, that might make the kids less dependable to prospective employers.
A lot of jurisdictions in the US use the housing first model, whereby they get kids off the streets into supported, safe, sober and secure transitional housing first and from there get them the treatment, training and support they need to find lasting employment and permanent housing.
But, hey, I guess William knows better and will save Britain’s homeless youth, 16 units at a time.
So the guy with four homes and is currently demanding a fifth thought the optics of announcing this while vacationing on a mega yacht would be a good idea.
It sounds like Centrepoint are doing all the work here. PW has piggy-backed onto Centrepoint’s Independent Living Programme (which pre-dates Homewards by a few years), which provides affordable housing for young people who might face homelessness. The Duchy has allocated one of their properties, which is great – but they could do so much more.
Oh and the timing is definitely to distract from the mega-yacht holiday and the bid for Fort Belvedere.
The new development they’re talking about would provide 16 flats.
The notes from the Lambeth Council planning committee looking at the proposal noted that “.. most of the independent living units at 60 Sancroft Street WOULD NOT MEET THE MINIMUM INTERNAL SPACE STANDARDS, and three of the units would not be dual aspect, however noting the circumstances of the development Officers consider that sufficient justification has been given to allow the support of the application”.
In other words, they are overlooking the fact that the proposals would not normally meet the rules as to adequate size of the accommodation units, because of the charitable purpose behind it. Maybe I’m being overly cynical, but I find it hard to believe that the Duchy couldn’t come up with a property which COULD meet the minimum size requirements. It is one of the largest landowners in the UK.
Sorry, trying to follow so you mean they are making them sub-standard units, smaller than normally allowed?
Yes, they are smaller units than would normally be permitted for single-person occupancy by the Council (who needs to grant permission for the redevelopment based on the plans submitted). But they’ve decided to allow it in this case.
Hmm. Okay, well that’s interesting. And yeah could the units not have been made to the standard-size that is permitted by the Council? It does kinda have that vibe of well it’s okay if it’s for these people.
Is the sour look on his face his body’s rejection of more work (any work)?
My god that top picture was like a xenomorph from Alien looking around the corner. /shudder.
Of course he does, of course. And that first picture, I’m getting the major creeps from it. It is so try-hard that I’m cringeing. What an ugly soul this man is.
Unless & until he no longer has any Duchy tenants paying him to live in mold-ridden, unrepaired properties, BillyIdle will never have one iota of credibility nor earn a single ounce of credit for any homelessness initiative.
I will NEVER forget, nor forgive, the fact that the Duchies WENT TO COURT to say that they should be EXEMPTED from the LEGALLY REQUIRED REPAIRS on various unlivable but still occupied properties, because it would cost OVER THREE THOUSAND POUNDS, OMG!! to repair them and that was too great an expense to force the poor, struggling “royal” owners to pay!!
I don’t care how many “royal” properties are assigned to accomodate the fragments of the Wails family. I don’t care how infrequently they bother to appear in public, no one wants to see them anyway.
But the open, unapologetic abuse of subjects for whom they are directly responsible, and the flagrant profiteering from the “ownership” of lands that should belong to the British people, is literally criminal.
Seriously, British folks, y’all need to ask yourselves why you’re paying these grifters even one farthing of public money.
QUESTIONER: “Why does your family cost us half a billion pounds a year, Charles?”
CHARLES THE CRUEL: “Ah, yes…” *walks away*
Like father, like son. And disgusting, withal.
William is such a hypocrite , living in luxury and protected from criticism all his life .
Solving homelessness is just another little self promotion game to him .
Awful man, Diana would be ashamed of him ,
For bel could host a lot of homeless people. So many empty houses these people have and they just sit empty. Why not open them up and make them livable for those less fortunate. That would be a true force or good. Granted I don’t know what is up with chuck health, but he doesn’t look his best.. so wily and Katie don’t need to move now. Soon enough they will have more homes than they can count .
These people are just a greedy selfish embarrassment to mankind.