The Prince of Wales today urges communities and businesses to come together to help his Homewards project achieve its aims of making homelessness "brief, rare and unrepeated"08:50, 30 Jun 2026Prince William has marked the three year anniversary of his ambitious homelessness project by announcing more than £7million in new funding.‌The Prince of Wales will issue a rallying cry today for his Homewards project to reach new heights in his crusade to alleviate the causes of homelessness. In the last year, the project has invested £1.9m across six locations in the UK, with another £3.5m raised through grants and private philanthropy.‌New partnerships, including a £2.3m furniture collaboration with The Multibank, DfS, Bosch Home Appliances, IKEA and B&Q to help people establish and sustain tenancies to stop them from becoming homeless. The total comes to £7.7m of new funding.‌The commitments are in addition to £50m donated last year by Lloyds bank to unlock brand new lending to support organisations to deliver homes. At a special anniversary event tomorrow, the Prince will urge Homewards to reach new levels, saying: saying: “The next two years are about proving that what works in six locations can work across the country.”The Prince of Wales is also expected to declare that if “systemic failure” causes homelessness then “systems can help prevent it” when he marks the third anniversary of his project to eradicate the issue.‌William, 44, launched his ambitious five-year Homewards initiative to create a blueprint to end homelessness in all its forms and has taken stock of the progress so far. Over the next two years, Homewards will focus on scaling solutions showing the greatest signs of potential, creating a model that can be applied across the UK and internationally.The aim is to get more people into homes, into jobs and supporting them at the earliest point, to showing “how it’s possible to make homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated.” Homewards - now over halfway through its five-year mission has reached more than 2,400 people through schools and community support; supported over 250 people into employment, and helped more than 73 individuals and families, who may have otherwise faced homelessness, move into stable homes.The campaign is a major long-term focus for William, who has said previously how visiting shelters with his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales, when he was a child left a deep and lasting impression and inspired his work.‌Through pilot projects across six flagship locations - Newport, Lambeth, Belfast, Aberdeen, Sheffield and the three neighbouring Dorset towns of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch – the programme is helping people into stable homes, employment, and crucially, building the systems where responsibility is shared, and risk can be identified sooner.This includes attracting and aligning longer-term funding so that prevention approaches can be sustained beyond the five-year programme.‌At the star studded event in London today, William will also say: “Homelessness is not an individual failure; it is a systemic failure. And, if systems help create the problem, then systems can help prevent it. 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."Dr Peter Mackie, Executive Director of the Institute of Global Homelessness and member of Homewards National Expert Panel said: “What we are seeing through Homewards reflects a growing international understanding; that homelessness can be prevented when systems work together more effectively to ensure we have the right homes available, access to a decent income, and the support networks we all need.“These early results are important because they show how data, lived experience and cross-sector action can come together to reduce risk and intervene earlier. The opportunity now is to build on this learning and apply it more widely, with urgency."‌Hazel Detsiny, Executive Director of Homelessness, The Royal Foundation: “Three years in, Homewards’ mission to test whether homelessness can be prevented at scale is starting to produce results."When asked what her meetings with the prince were like, Ms Detsiny said: "Punchy, I would say. But the question that the prince always asks me is ‘How will we know this has worked at the end of five years and how will we know it’s worked for long-term change?’Article continues below"If we start to change the culture, if people across the whole society think differently, act differently, work together, feel optimistic, then that will also be part of that sustainable long-term change that will spread to other places."She went on to say: “We’re not claiming that we’ve got all the answers. We’re only at the halfway point, but we are now seeing green shoots and clear evidence of what works in practice to prevent homelessness and how we can then move on to deliver at scale over the next years.”William has travelled to all six of the Homewards locations during the past three years to highlight the aims of his project. Celebrity supporters include former Lioness Fara Williams, TV presenter Gail Porter, Aston Villa footballer Tyrone Mings, Spice Girl Geri Horner, Opera star Sir Bryn Terfel, and broadcaster Sara Cox.