The Night Prince William Slept on London's Streets amid His 20-Year Fight Against Homelessness (Exclusive)

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The CEO of the charity Centrepoint, Seyi Obakin, tells PEOPLE that the future king wanted to "get close to this issue"
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Prince William's battle to help the unhoused is in its 20th year
Soon after he started his journey to help reverse the tide on homelessness, he slept out on the streets of London one night in 2009
Inspired by his late mom, Princess Diana, he has followed that with his ambitious Homewards project
A future king sleeping on the streets? For Prince William, that was a natural but nevertheless groundbreaking decision as he cemented his mission to help the homeless.
As his commitment to helping tackle the issue reaches its 20th anniversary, the moment that is seared into the minds of allies in the battle is being recalled.
When the Prince of Wales, 43, began his public life after university, he knew where to start: with an issue that he and his brother, Prince Harry, were introduced to as young boys by their late mother, Princess Diana. So Centrepoint, which Diana had also supported, was one of the first causes he adopted, becoming a patron that year, 2005.
Four years later, he secretly took the headline-making step of sleeping out on the streets of London one night. For a man in his position, making that decision was 'brave,' says CEO of Centrepoint, Seyi Obakin, who joined him that night: 'He said, 'I want to get close to this issue, and it is all well and good reading about it and talking to people affected by it, but how about I actually get a feel for it personally?''
Obakin tells PEOPLE, 'He didn't want to be in a safe zone. He wanted to have an experience that would be as close to the experience that a young person would have if they had had to make that choice.'
It rapidly drew attention to the issue, Obakin says.
'One of the first things he said, he didn't want to be an ornamental patron," Obakin explains. "He wanted to get involved and understand the issues and to know how he could help, and he wanted to help. He hasn't wavered from that from day one.' (Today, William has a five-year plan Homewards to find new ways of making homelessness "rare, brief and unrepeated" in the U.K.)
The appreciation of his impact comes at a time when he and his brother Harry are in the minds of people around the world as the 28th anniversary of their late mother's death in 1997 nears.
Inspiration to them both for their public philanthropy came from Diana, who took William and Harry to The Passage shelter in London when they were around ages 11 and 9. Current head of The Passage, Mick Clarke, tells PEOPLE how William said that the visits with his mother 'had left a deep and lasting impression.' He also 'talked about how his mom made it very pointed that he – as she said – was exposed to life beyond palace walls. That is something that he and [wife Kate Middleton] are doing with their own children.'
For more on how Prince William and Prince Harry honor their late mother, pick up a copy of this week's PEOPLE, on newsstands on Friday
Taking a lead from the playbook of Diana, who quietly not only visited refuges for the unhoused but also hospital wards for AIDS patients, William has secretly helped out behind the scenes. During one month during COVID-19 in November 2020, he went to The Passage three times in four weeks.
'He came in and helped, preparing and cooking the food — and in some cases delivering the food,' Clarke tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. 'I think he feels more comfortable when it is just him with no cameras.'
He's noticed how The Passage's users react when they meet Prince William, who has served as patron of the charity since 2019. 'People experiencing homelessness are very good at assessing if someone is authentic or not. When he visits, such as when he is helping out at Christmas, he normally runs over — if he's meant to be there for an hour, it will be approaching three.'
'There's something deeply authentic about that. With things like that, you can't fake it. I have known him now for many years, and what you see is what you get,' Clarke says.
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'One of the most terrifying things you can experience is street homelessness, and you can feel like you have lost everything," he adds. "And to have someone clearly wanting to genuinely hear your story and want to listen, is quite a statement. This is the guy who is a future king, and it is quite a statement, really, that he wants to do that; it is very supportive.'
Clarke adds, "The only reason you would put your head above the parapet and say, 'I don't believe we should be having homelessness in this country,' is if you were passionate about it and believed in it. He is so driven in terms of how can I bring people together to work on this in their own communities.'
On July 1, the day that would have been Princess Diana's 64th birthday, Prince William shared a platform with U.K. politician Gordon Brown, who was Prime Minister for three years from June 2007. 'I think he's changing people's view of homelessness and what can be done about it,' Brown said.
The occasion was the second anniversary of the Prince of Wales' Homewards project, where six areas of the U.K. are involved in trying innovative methods to find solutions to homelessness in the various areas.
Centrepoint is a partner of Homewards, and Obakin tells PEOPLE of William's project: 'He didn't want to be an ornament, and he wanted to affect the issue. I see sleeping out as part of that story, and I see Homewards as a continuation of that.'
'When I talk to people about ending homelessness 10 years ago, most people would say you're on a highway to nothing. Are you going to stop homelessness or stop what causes it from happening? For him to take on that and come out with it, I think you can't divorce that from that early introduction to the issue and the conscious choice he has made for the harder path and to say 'I'm going to do everything in my power to see to this issue," he adds. 'The language is more about ending homelessness and not about managing it. His intervention has changed the center of gravity in that way already.'
Clarke adds that Prince William isn't 'delusional in terms of thinking he can wave a magic wand and in an amount of years that can be done. But he has been a great catalyst in terms of emphasizing that the more people work together, the more you can look to find those solutions.'
Read the original article on People