Prince William took inspiration from his late grandfather’s ability to get things done today when he launched his homelessness project in Northern Ireland.
He was told how the Duke of Edinburgh persuaded politicians and civil servants to finance the building he was visiting in Belfast by asking them a very direct question: “Why don’t you just give them the ****** money?”
William, 41, visited the East Belfast Mission at the Skainos Centre in Newtownards Road and was shown around by the Rev Brian Anderson, who chairs the building’s board.
The Methodist minister told him how when the Queen and Prince Philip visited the old East Belfast Mission hall in 2008 they were shown plans for the Skianos Centre and when the monarch asked why it had not been built yet, one of his predecessors explained it was because of lack of money.
Philip, he said, turned around to the assembled politicians and civil servants behind him.
“He just immediately asked them: ‘Why don’t you just give them the money?’
“There was an expletive in there but I’m not going to say that. And three weeks later the money turned up.”
William replied: “That sounds like my grandfather,” and later smiled as he told a crowd of well-wishers who had gathered in the road outside: “The Reverend has been telling me stories about my grandfather.”
The mission oversees a range of support work for all sorts of people, including the growing number of homeless in Belfast and provides a hostel and housing for people without shelter.
William, who has picked six locations as five-year pilot projects to demonstrate how homelessness can be made “rare, brief, and unrepeated, has made the whole of Northern Ireland one of the areas for his crusade, entitled Homewards.
At the centre he heard how Belfast and the whole country of 1.9 million people is suffering from a lack of social housing and an overheated market has led to rocketing and unaffordable rents in the private sector.
The future King met experts, thanked them for the work they were doing, and vowed Homewards would change the narrative and put the UK on the road to ending homelessness.
“I see this as giving a rocket boost in the next five years to all the fantastic work you’re already doing,” he said.
