Prince William’s campaign to end homelessness has spawned a TV documentary described by one reviewer as “dismal television.”
Kensington Palace granted behind the scenes access to filmmakers highlighting William’s Homewards project, which was launched in 2023.
The show pitches the prince’s project as an effort to continue his mother ‘s legacy by trying to eradicate homelessness and featured footage from his childhood of mother and son working to help those less fortunate than themselves.
However, although the show, We Can End Homelessness, focuses on an indisputably good cause it got a rough ride in the media after it was broadcast on Wednesday, October 30, with many suggesting a contradiction bearing in mind his privilege and multiple homes.
It all suggests William might have an uphill battle ahead of him as he works to carve out a legacy during his time as next in line to the throne.
Marianne Levy for i News was perhaps most scathing in her assessment, arguing the royal needed to grapple with the political causes behind rising levels of homelessness.
“For if homelessness in the UK is to end, we need to know why it is at an all-time high,” she wrote.
“We need to know about cutbacks to social services, how the NHS is struggling to provide frontline care, the burden on GPs (general practitioners).
“We need to know about investment in and the building of social housing. Of these issues, and the many more that have contributed to the crisis William has announced his intention to solve, there was nothing. It made for dismal television.
“The contributors talked of hope, but what this documentary was missing was anger. William is clearly committed to his cause, but he simply cannot galvanise his audience at the ballot box, in the workplace, and in the wider social arena to fix this inhumane problem once and for all.
“As an hour of factual television that was supposed to prove it is possible to end homelessness, this documentary was an abject failure.”
The pro-Monarchy Daily Mail also contained some stinging criticism as high profile columnist Jan Moir wrote that after part one of the two-part series: “I was no clearer about how the prince was going to achieve his Homewards objective.”
“What could be more worthwhile than giving the homeless and the destitute somewhere safe and warm to sleep at night, instead of taking their chances on the cold and dirty streets of our cities?” she wrote.
“Oh, if only there was someone who had castles and mansions and vast country estates and multi-bedroom palaces and a Duchy of Cornwall property portfolio worth about a billion at his disposal, someone who could throw open his arms and the doors to his inherited privilege and perhaps eradicate the problem in one, ermine-tinged swoop?
“As one of the wealthiest landowners in the country trying to help those who haven’t got a carpet tile to call their own, is not unaware of the paradox of his position.”
She suggested the filmmakers were “restricted to a meticulously curated view of only what Prince William wants to be viewed.”
“There was footage of William looking concerned at meetings,” she wrote. “William looking concerned as he spoke to homeless people and William looking super concerned as he marched around with a folder under his arm.
“Six minutes in and he was already wearing a comedy apron, dishing out roast potatoes at a charity Christmas lunch and talking about how he was inspired to help the homeless by the memory of his mother; exclusive and personal photographs of William and Diana visiting a homeless shelter duly provided.
“Sometimes one cannot escape the feeling that we are all bystanders in a monumental existential struggle between Prince William and to be known henceforth as Mummy Loved Me Best.”
Lucy Mangan, a columnist with The Guardian, known for its popularity among those who want to abolish the monarchy was comparatively sympathetic: “His desire to tackle this issue is impressive, but his plan to eradicate rough sleeping is worryingly hard to understand. Let’s hope it works.
“Monarchist, I ain’t. Pragmatist, I am. So if Prince William wants to have a crack at ending homelessness via a new initiative called Homewards and pilot it in six test regions, I say—have at it, and good luck to you.
“But if you’re going to publicise it with a two-part documentary on ITV I’m afraid I am professionally bound to judge you on your degree of involvement and understanding of the project, alongside your telegenic articulacy and charm, and put aside the predisposition of fondness towards you that I feel for anybody I am old enough to remember being born.”
Some in the British media were more positive though, including Carol Midgley, writing in The Times: “Prince William must have known he’d encounter the P word when he announced that he was going to help ‘end homelessness.’ I mean ‘privilege’ but also, inevitably, ‘palaces.’
“The irony klaxon is always going to parp when you pronounce on rough sleeping and enjoy a portfolio of homes including Adelaide Cottage, a Kensington Palace apartment, the ten-bedroomed Anmer Hall and the fact that you will one day be king.
“‘I think he’s got a few spare rooms,’ someone tweeted sarcastically.
The anti-monarchy group Republic said that it was crass of him to get involved in this issue.
“Is it? I can see the grating irony, obviously, and I’m no royalist. But would it be better if he didn’t use his platform for good?” one commenter said.
Williams Brown is Regalrumination.com‘s chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on X, formerly , at and read his stories on Regalrumination.com‘s .
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