Prince William to build public housing on his Cornwall estate

The Prince of Wales is to use his own land for public housing, as he prepares to launch a major new project to end homelessness, 30 years after being taken to visit a shelter as a child by his mother, Diana.

In his first interview as heir-to-the-throne, Prince William said he was “absolutely” committed to establishing public housing on his 130,000-acre Duchy of Cornwall estate.

He told The Sunday Times of London: “You’ll see that when it’s ready. I’m no policy expert, but I push it where I can.”

The move to establish housing on Duchy land is “front of mind” for William, who turns 41 on Wednesday. He will  “start small” with the plan and scale it up if it proves viable.

William gave his first-ever newspaper interview to set out his vision for tackling homelessness with an ambitious five-year, nationwide project from his Royal Foundation which he will announce later in June.

The prince is particularly concerned about the rise in “hidden” youth homelessness, such as sofa surfing, which is “way too high,” and said he felt that too often, “people don’t even look at” the homeless.

He said: “How many people stop and talk to somebody who is homeless? Very few of us. In my job, I get to meet these people, I get to hear the stories, I get to feel it, I get to see it. That for me – and I’ve heard from them themselves – matters an awful lot. They’ve become invisible. It’s really important that society acknowledges that there is somebody there and they’re having a tough time. It shouldn’t happen but it’s right there, you can’t ignore it.”

His priorities are to “prevent” rather than “manage” homelessness, “elevate” awareness around the issue and secure “more collaboration” across the sector to produce “living conditions up and down the country that improve people’s lives.”

He also called on the public to set aside “preconceived ideas” and “judgments” about the homeless and to “acknowledge that there is somebody there and they’re having a tough time.”

William wants his legacy project, which he is expected to launch in several locations across the country, to “change the narrative.” He said: “There’s a lot of preconceived ideas around homelessness, there’s still stigma, when actually a lot of people don’t understand the fundamental basics. We just see the individual on the streets and go, ‘Oh.’ Loads of judgments as to why that person is there. You see more elderly people homeless because that’s what we see on the street. What we don’t see is the youth homelessness – sofa-surfing, people sleeping in their cars or on a mate’s bed, a lot of youth homelessness is very hidden.”

The prince, who is patron of the homelessness charities Centrepoint and The Passage, was 11 when his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, first took him to a homeless shelter in London, and spoke of how he is preparing to involve his own children in the cause.

He said: “When is the right time to bring George or Charlotte or Louis to a homeless organization? I think when I can balance it with their schooling, they will definitely be exposed to it. On the school run, we talk about what we see. When we were in London, driving backwards and forwards, we regularly used to see people sitting outside of supermarkets and we’d talk about it.

“I’d say to the children, ‘Why are they there? What’s going on?’ I think it’s in all our interests, it’s the right thing to do, to expose the children, at the right stage, in the right dialogue, so they have an understanding – they grow up knowing that actually, do you know what, some of us are very fortunate, some of us need a little bit of a helping hand, some of us need to do a bit more where we can to help others improve their lives.”

It is understood William hopes his new initiative will help refocus the public’s mind on the positive work of the monarchy. After a bumpy few years for the institution following the death of Queen Elizabeth, the fall-out from the Duke and Duchess of Sussexes’ departure and the Duke of York’s fall from grace, the prince conceded that not everybody can see what the royal family is for: “We’re all very busy and I think it’s hard sometimes to see what the family bring and what we do.

“But the amount of causes, the interests, the dinners, the meetings, the visits, whatever it is, that we do day-in-day-out throughout the year, we’ve always been involved in that, it’s part of what we do. It’s trying to spotlight other causes, other people, other interests, and help people where we can and we’ll continue to do that.”