He may have been highlighting one of his major projects, but the Prince of Wales’s thoughts were with his wife when he joined a conference about homelessness in Sheffield, and brought up the Princess’s work to support early years development when the topic came up.
Holding out his palms and smiling, he said: “Venturing into my wife’s territory here. She needs to be sat here to hear this.”
Prince William was speaking before news broke of his wife’s cancer diagnosis and he was determined to put the focus back on his own work, after weeks of speculation about Kate’s health. He met with the Homewards Sheffield Local Coalition at the city’s Millennium Gallery, where he posed for selfies and talked to a former rough sleeper.
After hearing from project worker Chris Lynam about how he had experienced homelessness and time in jail, the Prince said: “I want to say how brave you are to be here telling your story. It’s amazing where you are.”
He also asked the experts for their opinions on the extent of family homelessness in Sheffield and the impact of drug addiction on rough sleeping.
Chris said afterwards: “He was a nice man and really listened. I liked him.”
BOLD NEW STEPS
Earlier, the Prince unveiled major commitments to his five-year Homewards project to develop workable solutions to tackle homelessness. Sheffield is one of its six flagship locations and several local landlords have committed to providing an initial 33 homes for families at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness in the city.
Scott Black, chief operating officer of Places for People, one of the UK’s biggest landlords, told William: “With your convening power and vision, together with our collective resources and experience, we believe we can end homelessness in Sheffield for good. Thank you for being the catalyst for that and the opportunity for us to do our bit.”
In reply, the Prince said: “I appreciate that, but this has been a team effort. It’s the only way it’s going to work. This is the start of the journey – this is just the beginning. I am excited you are all sat round the table and are here.”
He added: “You don’t see the hidden homelessness of families. You see a lot of people sleeping rough, but not the other stories. We are trying to bring these other facets out.”
