The Prince of Wales, known as Prince William, marked the third anniversary of his ambitious Homewards project, aiming to make homelessness "rare, brief and unrepeated"15:51, 30 Jun 2026Prince William has said homelessness “affects us all” as he issued a rallying cry for communities to do more to solve the issue.‌The Prince of Wales today marked the third anniversary of his ambitious Homewards project, aiming to make homelessness across the UK “rare, brief and unrepeated”.‌The future king told how the issue affecting thousands of people across the country needs to be discussed more to deliver more focus in key areas to help more people find a permanent home.‌The prince this week announced the project had raised £7.7million in funding to add to £50m in support from Lloyds bank to spur the five year project onto achieving the goals set out in 2023.But William said there was more to be done, including in the six trial locations where radical reforms are taking place to show homelessness can be alleviated.‌Speaking at the anniversary event at the Tate Modern museum in London, William said discussions around the issue had proved difficult because “homelessness has not been a sexy subject for most people, it’s been a thing that no one wants to talk about”.The heir added: “Everyone knows it’s there but no one really tackles it and now we’re trying to elevate it to the point where it’s like: ‘This affects us all’ - we need to talk about it and we need to be more focused.”“It’s interesting because it’s a cultural problem as well, homelessness is one of those ones that no matter where you go in the world it’s not really taken seriously - everyone cares about it but no one is pulling the levers.”‌The initiative is being trialled in six locations: Newport; Lambeth; Belfast; Aberdeen; Sheffield; and the three neighbouring Dorset towns of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch.Explaining his findings over the last three years of the programme, William said: “So what we’ve found with Homewards is that if we can put a committee and a convening plan together and then draw people in, you create a really interesting dynamic.“But it does take a lot of time and effort to do, and you need somebody that’s willing to do that, otherwise it becomes the state’s problem and no one then bothers with it.”‌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 £2.3 million 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 commitments are in addition to £50million 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.”William said he wanted to celebrate the programme’s impact to date and explore how prevention can be applied at scale, saying that Homewards “is showing it can be prevented”.‌He added: “Across our six locations, we are seeing measurable signs of change. Three years on, Homewards has helped more than 73 people into stable housing, supported more than 250 people into employment and reached thousands before they reached crisis.“These aren't just statistics. They are people who have a home, a job, and a future that looked very different only a few years ago.”‌Later in the afternoon, William visited a site in Aberdeen, one of the Homewards locations, where 31 people are now living in homes created through the programme.During his visit to the Tate, the Prince viewed a Homewards timeline drawn by artist Myro Doodles, which included a sketch of when he first visited The Passage with his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1993.The timeline also included William’s recent visit to the same homelessness charity with his eldest son, Prince George, in December. He was invited to sign the mural next to the sketch of him smiling beside his son.Article continues belowElsewhere during the visit, he reunited with Aston Villa star Tyrone Mings, who as a child lived in a homeless shelter and helped launch Homewards three years ago.Mings, who plays for the Prince’s favourite team, said: “If you had told us about the impact this would have had three years ago when we were in Sheffield, then we would have been very proud of the work that it’s done.”