Prince William has long campaigned to eradicate homelessness. If there was any doubt that his noble aim would be difficult, however, his recent documentary emphasizes the challenges. In a clip from the documentary, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, courtesy of The Independent, the Prince of Wales is confronted by Lord John Bird, the founder of The Big Issue.
In the clip, Prince William addresses a room full of people, obviously the centre of attention. As unphased as you’d expect, the Prince of Wales says, “I’m conscious that it’s a team environment, it’s a team game, so please do feel free to pile in when you need to.”
Lord Bird, however, meets the admirable sentiment bluntly. In a somewhat confrontational tone, the Big Issue founder retorts, “I hope you mean that.” Of course, William handles the frankness with the composure and poise we’d expect, reassuring Lord Bird that he does mean exactly that.
Lord Bird goes on to lament the disjointed nature of the efforts to combat homelessness. “We need now to put all of the failed thinking that has gone into homelessness behind us,” he says. In fairness, Lord Bird welcomes Prince William’s pledge to “come together“, saying “that’s what I want.”
But if Prince William was under any illusion that dealing with The Big Issue founder would be straightforward, he must’ve been in for a shock. Bold as brass, Lord Bird states, “I don’t really want to have any bulls***.”
Much of Prince William’s drive to end homelessness comes from experiences with his late mother, Princess Diana. Together, they visited homeless shelters, seeing first-hand the struggles that the homeless must endure. In a moving clip, Prince William recalls how Princess Diana took him and Prince Harry to The Passage, a UK charity aimed at assisting the homeless. Even at that young age, Prince William was struck by the sadness those using the shelter must have felt, and understood that it was the only initiative keeping them off the streets.
As Lord Bird points out, though, many parties have tried to combat homelessness in the past. “We’ve had local authorities working here, charities working there. We’ve had government departments working there.” If any significant strategy is to come together, it will undoubtedly take many parties to cooperate and work in conjunction. Prince William’s documentary, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, is available on ITV in the UK. It will also air on Disney+ on November 1.
