The Prince of Wales has played table football and shadow boxed with young people experiencing homelessness.
William, who has been patron of youth homelessness charity Centrepoint for 20 years, joined youngsters at the charity’s centre in Ealing, west London, which provides 16 to 25-year-olds with a home, employment and education opportunities, as well as counselling.
After playing table football, he put on a pair of black boxing gloves and shadow boxed in a line with people supported by the charity.
The Prince of Wales punched pads held by a boxing coach who runs sessions at the 17-bed centre every week.
Following the drill, William said: “Good job, thank you. It might get me back into boxing, you never know” adding he had boxed “a long time ago, briefly, not properly”.
The prince added: “It’s seriously hard work though, just trying to do the proper training of boxing is tough stuff”.
Former Centrepoint resident Bethany, 24, teamed up with William during the table football game, sharing a high-five at the end.
Bethany, who was in care as a child and had her son when she was 17 before going on to use Centrepoint’s support, said she “pushed through” her difficulties to earn a degree from the London School of Economics (LSE) before starting her job in local government.
After their game, William asked her how she got back on her feet.
She said: “I have care experience as well, so the local authority obviously also helped me find housing, and Centrepoint obviously helped me with my life skills.”
He asked about the gap between leaving care and needing to use homelessness services.
Bethany responded that “there’s obviously not a lot of housing”, particularly “for those who are care-experienced parents, because that’s obviously a lot more difficult to find housing.
“There (were) times where a lot of the time we were in supported accommodation, were in accommodation that is probably not suitable for you and your child”.
After the visit, Bethany, who did not give her surname, told reporters: “I felt like in the beginning I didn’t have any expectations, but after speaking to him I actually got to understand that I feel like he really wants to know how things are going.
“I feel like meeting him really showed that he’s genuinely interested in how things are going.”
She added: “A place like this really helps young people at a time where sometimes it can be a make-or-break situation, and that was like it for me.
“So if I didn’t get support with things like childcare and things like pastoral support I wouldn’t have been able to continue my education.”
Centrepoint was “definitely a life-changing place” and “really helped me to keep on track and finish my education”, she added.
Ending homelessness has been a long-term focus for William, who has said visiting shelters with his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, when he was a child left a deep and lasting impression and inspired his work.
In 2023, William launched the Homewards project which aims to develop a blueprint for eradicating homelessness in all its forms, “making it rare, brief and unrepeated”.
Centrepoint chief executive Seyi Obakin said the prince has helped create a “belief now (that) homelessness can and should be ended.”
“That’s all because he’s saying these things. I could go around and whistle ‘homelessness can be ended until the cows come home’ (and) people don’t believe me.
“But what he’s saying is, ‘look, we as a society can come together and end homelessness’, and people go ‘yeah, OK – how?’ And that’s the effect (of his work), that’s what we want.”
Centrepoint is a key partner of the Homewards project and helps to advise The Royal Foundation on the design and development of the programme.
