As a child Prince William was taken by his mother on a secret visit to see the homeless in a Centrepoint shelter, an experience that led to his becoming the charity’s patron a decade later. Now he has extended that commitment by spending a night sleeping rough in sub-zero temperatures on the streets of London.
The Prince bedded down in an old sleeping bag in a doorway in the City of London, with no more than cardboard boxes to ease his discomfort.
“I think he got a couple of hours’ sleep,” said a spokesman for the Prince, who was accompanied by the charity’s chief executive, Seyi Obakin, and his private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton. “They were all absolutely frozen by the morning.”
For the Prince it was an opportunity to raise the charity’s profile and to discover the realities of rough sleeping. But it also turned out to be a lesson in the dangers faced by the homeless when the three men narrowly avoided being run over by a road sweeper.
The Prince said later: “I cannot, after one night, even begin to imagine what it must be like to sleep rough night after night.”
Advertisement
Centrepoint and other organisations were, he said, doing essential work to tackle the fundamental causes of homelessness: poverty, mental illness, drug and alcohol dependency and family breakdown. He hoped that his experience would help him to “do my bit to help the most vulnerable”.
Writing on the Centrepoint website, Mr Obakin said: “For me, it was a scary experience. Out of my comfortable bed. Out there in the elements. And it was the same for Prince William. But he was determined to do it as patron in order to raise awareness of the problem and to be able to understand a little better what rough sleepers go through night after night.”
Big strides have been made to reduce the number of homeless people on the streets of London. Mike McCall, executive director of operations at the charity St Mungo’s, said that the number sleeping rough on any night — about 250 — was half the level that it was ten years ago.
The London Delivery Board, a group of voluntary agencies and statutory bodies, aims to eliminate rough sleeping in the capital by 2012.
Prince William’s taste of rough sleeping took place a week ago in a passagway near Blackfriars Bridge. A photograph released by the charity shows him standing by their bedding next to Mr Obakin. His police bodyguard was stationed discreetly near by.
Advertisement
The venture came about after Mr Obakin challenged the Prince to experience being homeless for a night. It was not, he said, a challenge that he expected to be taken up.
However, the charity is close to the Prince’s heart. It was one of the first that he chose to support after leaving university. Three years ago he spent two days working in one of its shelters. Since then he has made return visits.
The Prince, who is 27, told the Prince of Wales of his plan to sleep rough. “His father was absolutely thrilled,” Prince William’s spokesman said. “He was very proud of him.”
Mr Obakin added: “One of the hairiest moments occurred when we were almost run over by a road sweeper which simply didn’t see our small group huddled together, which just goes to show how vulnerable rough sleepers are. I have never been happier to welcome the break of dawn.”
On the night temperatures fell to between 0C and minus 2C. They slept until 6am, when the Prince was taken on a tour of the West End to see where young people slept rough. He then went to Centrepoint’s base in Greek Street, where he cooked breakfast for a group of homeless people.