Prince William is “desperately trying to help" Sheffield's homeless. But is his plan working?

According to the CEO of a local charity, Prince William’s fight against homelessness in Sheffield might be “doomed to success”. It has now been a year and eight months since our city was named one of six pilot locations for the prince’s new charity Homewards, which aims to make homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated” in five years. Last month, the project finally published its “action plan,” detailing what it will spend the remaining three and a bit years trying to do. 

The CEO found the plan a bit vague — “it’s very top-level,” they argue, “Boris Johnson would be proud of it” — but that’s not what worries them most. Rather it’s their suspicion that, no matter what the project does or doesn’t achieve, local politicians, charities and the media will line up in a few years to declare it a resounding success. “It’s a bad idea to make a royal charity an enemy,” they tell me, which is why they insist on being anonymous. “But I also need to tell the truth.”

Judging by most media coverage of Homewards, the main criticism that has been levied at the project so far is that Prince William should leave fighting homelessness to those with less money. “Anti-monarchists have accused the prince of being ‘hypocritical’ for his housing project, when he has several homes,” reports the BBC, albeit without gesturing towards any examples of this argument being made. “I’m not at all complaining about the intention to tackle homelessness or having the prince involved,” the local CEO assures me. “But I’m not convinced it will have any kind of effect, let alone a significant one, because what’s been achieved so far is quite flimsy.” 

That’s certainly not how other local charities involved in the project tell me they feel. Safiya Saeed, a local councillor and the founder of Burngreave charity Reach Up Youth, overflows with enthusiasm about Homewards, both the “great foundation” it has already laid and its potential for the future. She argues the fact people don’t want to get on the wrong side of Prince William is more of a help than a hindrance. “People are moving differently and listening differently,” she tells me. “There’s landlords saying they want to have a softer approach with tenants and we’ve never heard that before.” 

And Tim Renshaw, CEO of homeless charity The Archer Project, takes the opposite view to his anonymous peer: he suspects people would find a reason to “critique and criticise” Homewards whatever it did. “I could do that, but it’s not the way we work,” he says. 

“We are still working out what our role is”

Nonetheless, criticisms have been voiced about the rate of progress so far, even if no-one is prepared to put their name to them. So, during a brief 15-minute interview with Homewards’ delivery lead for Sheffield, Hannah Crossan-Smith, I put the anonymous CEO’s comments to her.

The conversation grinds to an immediate frosty halt, which surprises me a little. No one likes criticism, but I had imagined a royal charity would be used to it. Crossan-Smith wants to know who I’m quoting; the first of three times someone from Homewards will try to get this information out of me. Victoria Spires — Homewards’ head of communications and the former PR for the Beckhams — eventually tells me the charity won’t be responding. She expresses frustration that I didn’t warn Homewards that I’d spoken to other charities about the project.