William's Life's Work Is To End Homelessness.

[BucksorHerts]

Just seen this post about an article in the Daily Mail.
William say's life's work is to end homelessness. His father is (and soon enough himself) the largest land owner in the country.
Instead of posing with the same homeless guy year in and year out asking commoners to end homelessness surely he can carve out some of that land to build low rent flats and studios for the poorest. He never gives up any of his money for anything but is always asking. His expenses are paid for - holidays, children's fees, accommodation etc.
Or even use all the money that comes to them from people who died intestate. It's unhealthy to accumulate so much wealth without doing any work. Even doctors who study for years and save lives do not get anything close to this. It makes no sense.

https://twitter.com/IncaDove/status/1732261729869201635?s=19

My manifesto for ending homelessness would be investment in social housing with no right to buy, providing decent services for people with mental health issues, addiction issues etc, investment in services to support children and families to prevent/provide therapy for trauma asap, a well-funded care system that meant children who did end up in care had the care and support they need.

All of which would count as 'political'. Whereas funding pilot projects that could provide support for some of those policies isn't 'political'.

I read ages ago that for every pound spent on free contraceptives, it saved far more - £8 or £10? something like that? - in the NHS services to an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.

One way of having an impact on the situation with homelessness - if you can't be seen to be involved politically - is by having an impact on the available evidence that can be used to advocate for what is needed. If it can be shown that spending £X on A, B and C saves more money than £X, it is a way of influencing the political environment.

It is very common for charitable Foundations to give grants to pilot projects for this sort of work - they don't have the resources to 'fix' the issue in the way government does, but they can influence government policy by showing evidence of the most effective way of spending

He won't be challenged on what exactly he thinks £3m will achieve over 5 years ( when his family have over the years deprived the treasury of many hundreds of times that) Just like he isn't challenged over the money spent by Earthshot on glitzy dinners compared to how much is spent on prize money ( another thing that is his life's work)

This is exactly what occurred to me when reading of £3m to be spent over five years.

When Earthshot has managed to spend £12m in awarding £5m in prizes in the only accounts published to date it doesn't make for much confidence in the process.

It won't do much against the total level of homelessness in the UK.

If it provides evidence that a funded package of support has a measureable impact on homelessness it could potentially shift the dial on government funding, which is the Holy Grail for voluntary funding.

Which is why Charitable Trusts and Foundations want to fund pilot projects with robust evidence gathering and evaluation - because their limited funding is used to create a lever for government funding, which could never be matched by voluntary funders.

Isn't this about society in general, absent fathers, cost of living, drug use and alcohol. We no longer gather as a community anymore, family's with problems were supported by the church and everyone looked out for their kids. My mum grew up in a small town, in her living memory she had a safe community and two of her friends were vulnerable because of mental health issues in the family. The whole community came together to make sure they were able to grow up with opportunities.

Homelessness has always been there in a different guise, I worked for a while in the 90s at a huge mental hospital. It was a secured unit with gardens, the following year it closed and many who were in there in the following years ended up on the street as they didn't need to stay in care in the community. They were no longer in a community.

We assume that proving housing will ensure that homelessness will end, but it has to be much more than that. We need to build communities and care for each other.

There is no quick fix homelessness.

Government money doesn't come out of thin air though. It comes from taxation. Which takes us to the start of the thread.

I don’t know about the UK but in my country there’s a housing shortage, rents are extremely high, house prices are ridiculously expensive (if you don’t already own a house, or inherit one, the chances of buying one are a great deal slimmer than they were 2decades ago) and real wages are not what they were 20 years ago, money is not going as far, food prices are skyrocketing - supermarkets have a monopoly. People are generally working longer hours for less. It’s all going backwards.

All these things combine to make it that for the first time since the Great Depression significant numbers of people with young families are finding themselves homeless. Also, divorced women over 50 who have not worked out of home, or only worked part time or in low paying jobs, and have been the main carers for their children are finding themselves without adequate superannuation - they are one of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing cohort of homeless.

They are often living in their cars or couch surfing. Showering at friends places or public facilities. Lives are falling apart. And this will probably lead to mental health problems.

In a population of about 26million people we have 1 million children living below the poverty line - kids are going hungry - according to the Smith Family charity. (Governments don’t make this stuff easily knowable). This is Australia today. A so called ‘wealthy nation.’ It’s wealthy for some. The wealth has become extremely concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.

Is the UK comparable to Australia in any of this?

(Oh, the fires and floods of 2019- 2020 and floods of 2021 has also left many people homeless. Many houses are still not rebuilt. That’s another story - but probably an ongoing & repeating one because of the climate crisis. (One that also adds great pressure on available housing.)

Well, you ve just named a very important thing that could be done.

Better MH facilities/drug treatments.

On the large MH hospitals of years ago, often more like prisons, out of sight, out of scrutiny.
They ended up in these places exactly because their local community wouldn't help them..... sold off mostly by the Tories for golf clubs/hotels and luxury housing.

The simple truth is that unless we build what used to be called Council housing, nothing will change, the Tories idea is to build more affordable housing but that is just a slightly cheaper house, doesn't help renters.

We can never have zero homelessness, just like they'll always be poverty but we can do a heck of a lot more to reduce both.

No one knows what works. That’s why pilot programs are a great idea. Figure out what works first then implement it.

Id rather see solutions that addressing the root cause. Rehab is … way too late in my opinion.

Maybe William needs to read some research then and read up about previous successful evaluated programmes. We absolutely do know what works, although I accept William might not.

We know what works, and yet the evidence is routinely ignored. We have senior government ministers saying that homelessness is a lifestyle choice.

It's almost as if some high profile attention is needed to remind people.

@AliceOlive I agree to a point, there is some evidence about what can help, but it is very difficult to show what can help prevent homelessness, because the root causes are long-term, and very intertwined factors so getting a straightforward cause and effect is impossible.

We know there are some factors that make it more likely that someone becomes homeless e.g. having been in care. But is it the experience of being in care? What is the difference between one stable placement and multiple placements, age of going into care, degree of trauma before going into care? is it lack of on-going support so a relatively small problem as an adult means you don't have the background resources e.g. if you lose you job you move in with family for a few months?

Realistically it is some of all of that. What would a preventative programme look like? It would need to run for a couple of decades at least, and there is no political will for long term approaches

@parksandrecs So William is going to challenge the myths about homelessness that some Government Ministers are peddling? Oh good! That is worthwhile.

No, he can't challenge it directly, because he can't be seen to be involved in party politics.

On the other hand, his actions show that he doesn't believe homelessness is a lifestyle choice.

@parksandrecs We do know. We know that people coming out of -prison often end up homeless because they often lose their homes when in prison. So they end up in insecure accommodation when leaving prison and are very vulnerable to homelessness.
We know that care leavers who often have higher levels of trauma, do not get the support that other young adults often take for granted if things go wrong. Loads of young adults move back home with family temporarily when things go wrong. From end of university and not yet found a job that pays enough rent, to relationship breakdowns, to tenancy ending and not having found somewhere else to stay. I would have ended up homeless if I could not have moved home for a few months when I was 20. Cheap and secure housing would solve a lot of these problems.
We know service personnel often end up homeless when they leave the services as many have untreated or under treated PTSD and can't cope in a less regimented life.
Initiatives that have been scrapped like No Second Night were set up on the basis of research that shows the longer someone is on the street, the harder it is to get them off. So it used outreach staff to make sure no one newly coming onto the streets spent anymore than 1 night there. It was early intervention.
Shelter also know the laws around tenancies mean many people live in insecure accommodation and can easily find themselves as part of the hidden homeless.

I actually find it really frustrating to see people arguing that we do not know the issues and we do not know how to tackle them when we absolutely do.

So what high profile attention is he going to bring then? Is he going to tell us homelessness is bad? Is that what you mean?

No, it is about showing that services are needed

But if you would rather everyone looks the other way, you are entitled to your opinion

So William is going to end homelessness by showing services are needed?
I guess he does not walk around City and Town centres and see homeless people there so maybe thinks people do not realise anyone is homeless?

I can tell you that everyone in the homeless sector are rolling their eyes at his bid to end homelessness. It will result in pr for William, and a grant from the Royal Foundation to one or two smaller projects. Apart from that it will do nothing.

If William would be political then he could achieve something. But vague pronouncements saying the obvious about homelessness do absolutely nothing. I am not a fan of Charles, but when he was Prince of Wales he wasn't afraid to be controversial and was outspoken on what he believed in. So please do not pretend that this is anything but a choice for William to avoid all controversy.

Hmmm, the people I know in the sector are cautiously positive. No, it isn't a magic bullet. But, given the limitations on his role, welcomed.

Do you work with the Royal Family? An aide or PR person? If yes then the reaction you describe is exactly what I would expect.
The Royal Family have power and could make life very difficult for an individual or charity project if they chose to.

No, I work in the non-profit sector, and have done for 30 years. A bit in the homelessness sector a couple of decades ago, mostly in the children and families sector. Most of my friends are in the non-profit sector, some in homelessness, others children/families, arts/culture etc

I'm sorry that you can't accept that others have a different opinon that is equally valid.

You are wrong. I accept other people have opinions. I don't think the opinion that this will achieve any more than some grants to a few smaller projects from the Foundation is a valid one.
We only have to look at William's history to see that. Didn't he promise to devote his life to the issues in the Middle East. And then never said another word about it.
The idea that William will end homelessness will be quietly shelved and a few grants made with maximum media coverage and fanfare.

I don't believe William can single handedly end homelessness, of course not!

Don't be ridiculous.

It is a time when we need people with a public profile to makeit clear that homelessness is not a lifestyle choice, despite the current political narrative.

But you have just said William can't say homelessness is not a lifestyle choice as that is challenging a government Minister and so political.
And William did say he would work with others to end homelessness.

He can't say it in words. He can say it by e.g. publicising an initiative to tackle homelessness, which shows a belief that it isn't a lifestyle choice.

I'm not sure whythat is difficult to understand