Whatever you think about the royal family, you have to admit that, generally speaking, they have a slick and professional PR operation. How else could you see so many glittering headlines about the efforts of Prince William to cut homelessness? Homeless charities and organisations believe there are around 300,000 homeless people in the UK and the heir to the throne, via The Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, is initially providing £3m – with £500,000 seed funding for initiatives in six locations. In a gushing piece on the BBC website, it says: “Prince Harry has his own public cause in taking on the tabloid press, so now Prince William will be out there fighting homelessness.” Get in there, Wills. The people’s hero. Fighting for the homeless with a massive £3 million. Three cheers? Well, not by me. Not yet.
“Fair play to him,” will be what his spin team will be wanting us to say. “At least he’s doing something about it. More than (any list of names you can think of).” And yes, something is better than nothing. But in this case, only just.
How far do you think £3 million will go? Two new houses are being built around the corner from us. They’re going for £700,000 each so, I suspect, if that sum is invested around here, homelessness won’t be remotely alleviated. It will be, at best, tokenism, whether the prince really believes in it or not. But since it’s money that makes the world go around, William and his family have rather a lot of it. Let’s look at the evidence:
- According to Forbes, the royal family is worth £21.3 billion
- King Charles inherited £380.7 million from his late mother QEII
- Charles himself is worth £1.8 billion
- The Crown Estate is worth £15.6 billion and last year generated £312.7 million in net revenue
- The Duchy of Cornwall, now owned by Prince William reported a profit of £24.6 million last year
But there’s one figure that really brings it home to me. While William is investing £3 million, the restoration project of Buckingham Palace is going to cost an eye-watering £369 million. And who is paying for that? The Firm? King Charles? From the profits generated by the Crown Estate or the Duchy of Cornwall? Of course not. We, the people, are paying for it, that’s who.
On a positive note, William’s Homewards Project would appear to be something more substantive than the usual royal work which usually involves rushing around cutting ribbons, shaking hands with people, small talk and waving. And people will soon see through anything that comes across as a publicity stunt, purely to boost popularity. The Duchy of Cornwall currently rents out properties to the very rich for as much as £3000 a week. That flies in the face of the need for more social housing and lots of it, but to be fair, William has only been in the job – if you can call it a job – for a relatively short time. Actions rather than words will be needed and soon.
