Prince William Heads to Wales to Highlight Trauma and Poverty Issues Experienced by Unhoused Women

The Prince of Wales visited Newport, which is one of the centers for his Homewards project

Prince William is highlighting the particular difficulties women face when they are unhoused.

Women who don’t have a home often face disadvantages, from trauma to poverty and domestic abuse. They are especially susceptible to experience “hidden homelessness," as they are less likely than men to sleep on the streets because of fears for their safety. Instead, they might sleep on friends’ sofas or on public transport.

On Nov. 20, William headed to Newport, Wales, which is one of the six key areas around the U.K. that his Homewards program is focusing on as it seeks to make homelessness "rare, brief and unrepeated." Last week, he went to Belfast, Northern Ireland to check in with the specific work being done there as well.

Unhoused women have been identified as a key priority in Newport, where there are reports of a rise in women’s homelessness. In doing so, Homewards hopes to not only help these women but also share learnings with the program’s other five flagship locations and beyond.

Soon after after arriving in the city on Nov. 20, William, 42, was told what the local coalition brought together by Homewards is doing to prevent women's homelessness in the city, and he highlighted the commitments from local organizations which have made pledges of support.

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The Prince of Wales was joined by Homewards Advocate Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, who herself experienced homelessness as a teenager in the city. Cohen-Hatton, who appeared in William’s recent documentary, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, is now a successful fire chief in an English county. The pair visited The Nelson Trust, which plays a pivotal role in delivering trauma-informed support for women in Newport.

They met local women who have experienced homelessness and are part of a "Women of Newport" photography project, which seeks to raise awareness and change perceptions around women's homelessness and demonstrate that recovery from homelessness is possible. They also privately visited a women’s support service to hear from women who have experienced homelessness due to domestic abuse and sexual exploitation.

The meeting highlighted what services are needed to help women who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness and what needs to be done to support them further in the city.

Sonia Furzland, executive director of operations at Newport City Homes, has had a 40-year career in housing. She was homeless herself when she was about 16, she tells PEOPLE.

Furzland was included in roundtable conversations which Prince William took part in with about 30 other women at The Nelson Trust. 

“He’s just such a natural people person. He came and sat at our table and we were mid-conversation and, bizarrely enough, the future king is sat with us, and everybody carried on talking,” she says. “That says a lot about him, in that he’s not necessarily the loudest person in the room. He was very keen for the conversation to happen. What struck me was his humility.”

Their conversation focused on how the commissioning of housing is often splintered around different organizations and providers. 

“The whole landscape can be a little impersonal and also too complex. We just need to keep it simple,” Furzland adds. “He was really interested in our project ‘Homes for Women,’ which tries to cut through that complexity and bring that team around the woman — such as housing providers like us — so that it wraps around the woman. He was asking if the point where we’re intervening is too late. And our views were yes.”

“Quite often, by the time those women get help they may have lost their children, and so the answer was, ‘Absolutely, we need to be intervening much more quickly so that families aren’t displaced and broken up.’ ”

“He was asking who wasn’t there today — who do we need to have at the table to make it happen? His support and his presence and his challenge to us all is, ‘Are we thinking big enough about this? Who else needs to be involved?’ And how Homewards can assist in bringing those people to the table,” Furzland continues.

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She adds, “His is a massive ambition — I genuinely get the sense from him that he absolutely believes that through the work he’s leading that we can end homelessness. And that’s really inspiring.”

“There’s something about him as well that brings people to the table. There’s a certain charisma and also his absolute belief that we can make this happen means that people who probably wouldn’t be interested in the conversation are actually interested,” she adds.

Furzland was also captured in one of a series of photographs that were on display —- portraits of women who’ve experienced homelessness. “The purpose is to try and change peoples’ ideas of homeless women and countering the sense that being homeless is an absolute catastrophe when all the women featured are survivors of homelessness,” she says. “He was incredibly supportive and respectful of their journeys and the things they’ve gone on to achieve.”

After experiencing homelessness at 16 — living in hostels and sofa surfing — Furzland says those experiences are “pretty typical of a homeless woman’s homeless experience. It definitely shaped me as a person, but it definitely didn’t define me.”

William's visit came as the Newport Homewards coalition announced a series of initiatives that will help women in the area. The local publicly-funded National Health Service will provide an Early Intervention Worker who will focus on helping women get access to the right services as soon as they come forward to help them avoid reaching a crisis point.

For the first time in Newport, local authorities are committing themselves to exploring the provision of women-specific properties in the city. The Nelson Trust, which William visited, will help professionals across a range of support organizations are better trained and equipped to help women who have experienced trauma.

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William also met the businesses, charities and other organizations that are working in the Homewards Newport Coalition to hear about commitments they are making to support local efforts to prevent and end women's homelessness. These organizations included Newport City Homes, Newport City Council, Newport Live, POBL, Dick Lovett and Public Health Wales.