Prince William in the upcoming documentary Homewards. Credit: ITV.
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Big Issue founder Lord John Bird hopes Prince William can help surmount “failed thinking” on homelessness – and says he “doesn’t want any bullshit”.
Lord Bird issues his frank message to the future monarch in a new documentary about the prince’s Homewards programme, an ambitious initiative to “end homelessness in five years”.
Prince William: We Can End Homelessness airs at 9pm on 30 and 31 October on ITV1 and ITVX.
“We need the expertise of everybody,” says Lord Bird, who sits down with the prince in episode one of the two-part series.
“We’ve had local authorities working here. We’ve had charities working there. We’ve had government departments working there. We need now to put all of the failed thinking that has gone into homelessness over the last 30 years behind us, and we’ve all got to come together,” he says.
“So when William says he wants to converge it, that’s what I want, and I don’t really want to have any bullshit.”
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Prince William adds: “John will happily tell me if it’s not going well.”
“He is very direct and quite right. I mean, he’s seen many attempts come and go over the past. So it’s important people like John buy into what we’re doing.”
Homewards has created coalitions at six flagship locations: Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Sheffield, Lambeth, Aberdeen, and Newport and Northern Ireland.
The Royal Foundation will provide each location with up to £500,000 of seed funding across the lifecycle of the five-year programme. This money will provide local advocates with the “space, tools and expertise” to develop models of ending homelessness.
In its first year, 539 individuals and organisations took part in more than 60 Homewards events. Some 100 homes for people experiencing homelessness are in the pipeline.
Big Issue ambassador Sabrina Cohen-Hatton is serving as one of Prince William’s Homewards advisors.
It’s been a long journey for the one-time Big Issue vendor, who went from sleeping rough at 15 to working as one of the UK’s highest-ranking firefighters.
The documentary is a chance to “change the way people feel about homelessness”, Dr Cohen-Hatton told journalists after a special screening in London, attended by Big Issue.
“One of the things that was the most difficult for me in my journey through homelessness was recovery from homelessness, and I promise you, it is a recovery,” she said.
“You move from a place where you feel isolated from the rest of society as you know it, you feel completely shut off. You feel devalued. You have experiences that are incredibly dehumanising, and after a while, it becomes part of your lens and how you see the world, how you see yourself. And honestly, it doesn’t take you long for you to start to write yourself off.
“We shouldn’t be writing people off. Everybody has value, everyone does, and it’s our responsibility to help someone to recognize that at their lowest moment.”
In the documentary, Cohen-Hatton visits Cwmbran vendor Vincent Lewis, who also credits the Big Issue with “saving his life”.
Lewis said that Prince William is doing “amazing work”.
“I hope every vendor and everybody on the street and the Big Issue support him. I hope Sabrina keeps on helping – he can’t do it on his own. I think his passion for it comes from his mother,” he said.
“I’d rather trust him than the government trying to do it. When I first came to Cwmbran, there was just me here [rough sleeping]. Now, there’s eight, ten of us here. Things have gotten a lot worse. People are struggling, you can see it on their faces. Everybody is worried about the economy, everybody is worried for what the budget next week will hold.”
Lewis thanked the people in the town of Cwmbran for their years of support.
“I want to do something in my life. I want to start a fruit and veg shop,” he said. “I’ve always thought about it. That’s my ambition, but if not, I’ll sell the Big Issue for the rest of my life.”
The documentary is apolitical – unsurprising given its royal patronage. But it reflects a broader, unspoken reality: the third sector is increasingly having to step in to fill the vacuum left by government failures.
An estimated 3,898 people were counted as sleeping rough across England on a single night in autumn 2023. This official rough sleeping snapshot is more than double the 1,768 people on the streets in 2010.
Official statistics show that 358,370 households contacted their local authority for support after being threatened with homelessness or losing their home in 2023-24, up more than 10% in a year.
Homewards is a non-political entity. However, Prince William has said that he wants to use his high-profile platform to draw attention to the challenge of homelessness.
“I think everyone having a right to a safe and stable home benefits us all,” he tells an interviewer in the new documentary. “I come with no other agenda than desperately trying to help people who are in need. And I see that as part of my role. Why else would I be here, if I’m not using that role properly to influence and help people where I can?
“And I like a big challenge. I do like that. But I can’t do it on my own.”
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