Prince William Discusses Homelessness with His Kids So They Aren't 'Living in Their Own Worlds'

The Prince of Wales shared how he's initiating discussions with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis

Prince William is normalizing conversations about homelessness with his children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.

The Prince of Wales, 42, makes the revelation in the upcoming documentary titled Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, according to multiple outlets. The documentary, filmed over 12 months, follows the heir to the throne during the first year of his five-year Homewards program, a locally-led campaign in six places across the U.K. aiming to demonstrate that homelessness can be eliminated.

Prince William: We Can End Homelessness will air on ITV in two parts on Oct. 30 and 31, and Hello! reported that Prince William was asked in it when he felt would be the right time to discuss homelessness with his children. The Prince of Wales shares Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6 with his wife, Kate Middleton.

"I am probably already doing it on the school run," Prince William reportedly said. "The first few times I thought 'Do I bring this up or should I wait to see if they notice?' Sure enough, they did. They were sort of in silence when I said what was going on."

Related: Prince William Recalls Emotional Childhood Memory with Prince Harry in First Public Mention of Brother in Years

"I do think it is really important that you start these conversations when the children are small so they understand the world around them, rather than just living in their own worlds," he continued, according to the outlet.

The Prince of Wales also mentioned that his late mother, Princess Diana, also talked about unhoused people with him at a young age, Hello! said.

"When you are that small you are just curious and trying to work out what’s going on. You ask the question 'Why are they sitting there?' My mother would talk to us a bit about why they were there and it definitely made a really big impact," Prince William was quoted as saying in the upcoming series, seemingly referring to himself and his brother, Prince Harry.

Before her death following a car accident in Paris in 1997 at age 36, Princess Diana made supporting the unhoused a part of her royal platform through her patronage of Centrepoint, the U.K.'s leading youth homelessness charity. She also brought her sons William and Harry to homeless shelters when they were children in order for them to learn more, which William mentioned in a clip from Prince William: We Can End Homelessness released on Oct. 26.

Related: Prince William Says He Talks to His Kids About Homelessness on 'the School Run': 'We Talk About What We See'

"My mother took me to The Passage; she took Harry and I both there. I must have been 11 at the time, maybe 10. I had never been to anything like that before, and I was a bit anxious about what to expect," Prince William said in the snippet, as throwback photos of them there together can be seen.

"My mother went about her usual, making everyone feel relaxed, having a laugh and joking with everyone," he said. "I remember at the time kind of thinking, 'Well, if everyone doesn't have a home, they’re all going to be really sad.' But it was incredible how happy an environment it was."

The royal recalled "having some good conversations, playing chess, chatting and that’s when it dawned on me that there were other people out there who don’t have the same life as you do."

"You know, when you’re quite small, you just think life is what you see in front of you and you don’t really have concept to look elsewhere. It's when you meet people, as I did then, who put a different perspective in your head and say, 'Well, I was living on the street last night,' and you’re like, 'Woah.' I remember that happening," William said.

Today, the Prince of Wales continues his mother's work by supporting both Centrepoint and The Passage, another London-based organization working to end homelessness, as patron.

The royal dad previously spoke about discussing unhoused people with his children "on the school run" in an interview with The Sunday Times, published in June 2023. William said that he and his kids have an open dialogue on the topic, and that the "right time" to bring George, Charlotte and Louis to a homeless organization would be when it fit with their school commitments.

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"When I left this morning, one of the things I was thinking was, 'When is the right time to bring George or Charlotte or Louis to a homeless organization?' I think when I can balance it with their schooling, they will definitely be exposed to it," Prince William told the outlet. "On the school run, we talk about what we see. When we were in London, driving backwards and forwards, we regularly used to see people sitting outside supermarkets and we’d talk about it."

"'I’d say to the children, 'Why are they there? What’s going on?' " he said then. "I think it’s in all our interests, it’s the right thing to do, to expose the children, at the right stage, in the right dialogue, so they have an understanding. They [will] grow up knowing that actually, do you know what, some of us are very fortunate, some of us need a little bit of a helping hand, some of us need to do a bit more where we can to help others improve their lives."

Prince William: We Can End Homelessness will feature powerful stories from those currently navigating homelessness and with lived experience alongside some "life-changing solutions," ITV said in a statement. The documentary directed by BAFTA-winning director Leo Burley was announced in July, offering an intimate glimpse of the Prince of Wales behind the scenes at work.

The heir to the throne launched Homewards in June 2023 through The Royal Foundation, the umbrella for his philanthropic work with Princess Kate. The new program is providing $3.8 million to six different locations through the U.K. in an ambitious plan to make homelessness "rare, brief and unrepeated" and offering a model for other places to do the same. 

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