The Prince of Wales helped turn a flat into a home for a housing association tenant after declaring his project to prevent homelessness can be “embedded” across society.
Homewards Anniversary Event
William marked the third anniversary of his Homewards initiative by furnishing the property in Aberdeen, one of six areas across the country where he is trying to create a template to eradicate homelessness in all its forms.
The future king carried a dining room chair up three flights of stairs to the one-bedroom flat on the outskirts of the city, with Langstane Housing Association staff fetching the other three, and was given a brief tour of the accommodation.
Progress Report
Earlier in a major speech at London’s Tate Modern, William spoke about the progress since he launched Homewards in 2023: “Three years on, Homewards has helped more than 73 people into stable housing, supported more than 250 people into employment and reached thousands before they reached crisis.
“These aren’t just statistics. They are people who have a home, a job, and a future that looked very different only a few years ago. And crucially, people are being supported earlier, in schools, in the workplace, in their communities, so homelessness never becomes part of their story.
“Across our work, we’ve helped thousands of people to reduce their risk of falling into crisis. By trialling new approaches, Homewards is demonstrating how prevention can be embedded across every part of our society. Proving that our true strength emerges not in isolation, but in a shared purpose that makes us greater than the sum of our parts. Where services work together around people’s lives, rather than in silos.”
Initiative Details
William’s ambitious Homewards initiative is a five-year project aimed at making homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated”. Homewards works in six locations – Newport, Lambeth, Belfast, Aberdeen, Sheffield and the three neighbouring Dorset towns of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch – with the aim of delivering bespoke solutions to homelessness issues in each area.
During the past three years, Homewards has invested £1.9 million across its six locations through the Homewards Fund, with another £3.5 million leveraged through grants and private philanthropy, organisers have said. A further £2.3 million worth of surplus goods has been used to furnish Homewards homes.
Furnishing the Flat
The furniture in the Aberdeen flat, whose tenant will sign their agreement with Langstane on Wednesday, was provided by organisations and businesses like Ikea who are supporting the prince’s homeless initiative, and they also donated cleaning products and home appliances like vacuum cleaners and air fryers.
In the housing association’s offices, close to the flat he visited, William filled a bag-for-life destined for a new home with cleaning products and said as he worked: “All that makes them feel like it’s a home, not somewhere they’ve got to stay.”
There was a lighter moment when Helen Gauld, Langstane’s chief executive, mentioned air fryers which the balding prince misheard and replied “some of us don’t need hair dryers”.
Other Events
During the event at the art gallery in London, William met individuals, organisations and businesses involved in Homewards to celebrate its progress, including broadcaster and DJ Dean McCullough. After McCullough introduced his mother to the prince, the group discussed the broadcaster’s own experience with homelessness in his childhood and how “proud” he is to be an ambassador for youth homelessness charity Centrepoint.
The prince also talked with Baroness Louise Casey, who has worked on homelessness in government for many years, about the “systemic changes” needed to address the issue across the country.
William was then shown a timeline of the key moments of his work on homelessness and the story of Homewards, painted on a wall by artist Myro Doodles. This included his first visit with his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, to the London-based homelessness charity The Passage, as well as the first time he went there again with his eldest son Prince George in late 2025.
After signing the mural near the drawing depicting this later visit, William joked with Ms Doodles “you’ll soon need a longer wall, hopefully”.
