The Royals with Roya and Kate - The Prince's homelessness champion, Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Today, Roya and Kate are joined by the remarkably impressive, firefighting polymath Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, one of the world’s most senior female firefighters. She’s also an advocate for Prince William’s Homewards Initiative helping those who are homeless. And as you’ll hear, had to deal with the most challenging of starts to life, being homeless herself for some of her teenage years. She talks about what it is like working with the Prince of Wales, and taking part in a new ITV documentary which highlights the Prince's work on homelessness where the Prince of Wales has spoken candidly about drawing on his late mother’s “inspiration and guidance”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kate Manzie. Roy Anika. One subject that's been in more episodes than any other this year is what? King's Dancing, Harry and Meghan, your horse riding. Yes, but not quite. Homelessness and the Prince of Wales, Prince William's campaign to support those who are homeless.

Yes, the Homeward campaign's been one of the causes he has returned to again and again. And today we are going to talk to somebody who embodies the ethos of that campaign, who stars in the campaign even, and who can tell us from her own life experience what is needed, what the problem is. The remarkably impressive firefighting polymath Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton. Sabrina experienced homelessness as a 16 year old in Wales and has gone on to be one of the highest ranking female firefighters in the world.

And she can also tell us what it's like to work very closely with William and what motivates him as well as her about this work. And believe me, Kate, she. Sabrina Cohn-Hatton, thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of The Royals. We've got you here to talk about a very special project that you've been working on with Prince William and Kate and I have just hot-footed it across town having seen a screening of the documentary, Prince William, Weekend in Homelessness. This is a two-parter that's coming out this week which features you obviously

and it's on ITV so everyone can watch it and it's all about the Prince's Homewards Initiative. And one of the key things I think that people will really get a sense of in the documentary is how important it was to the Prince that people with lived experience of homelessness are in the documentary but also a very core part of Homewoods. So I think will you just tell us a little bit about your background and your experience and first of all tell us what your job is now because we've got slight envy, gargantuan envy. I am a Chief Fire Officer now. Give us your full title. I'm a Fire Brigade Chief Fire Officer of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. Amazing. Yeah so it's a massive privilege for me to be in a public service position. I absolutely love it. I joined as a firefighter when I was 18,

quite soon after my experience of homelessness, actually, and joined the fire service and went through my entire career from a firefighter. I'm now a chief, so it's the highest rank that you can attain. And in fact, there are more chief fire officers called Chris than women chiefs. There's not very many of us.

I mean. Oh my goodness. What a staff. That's a change from Chris and then it can be both. Oh gosh, Chris, the Women Chiefs. There's not very many of us. I mean. Oh my goodness. What a staff. That's a change in name to Chris and then it can be both. Oh gosh, yeah, because you imagine, there weren't more Johns at one point as well, but then one retired, so it's a good one, my staff. But that path is extraordinary in and of itself because you experienced homelessness,

which is why you're involved with the Homewoods Initiative in the first place and you've gone from that to win all sorts of accolades. You've written a book, you have a PhD. Tell us a bit about that journey. How did you end up homeless, and how did you get out of that situation? Well, I have a backstory that is by no means unique to me.

I grew up in a single parent household after my dad died of a terminal illness. He had a brain tumor, and my mum really struggled to cope after his death. And she really suffered with her mental health. And we were living in an incredibly volatile environment. We had social services, we're back and forth all the time. And it was really tough growing up.

We didn't have anything, my mum's business failed. And it was tough. She took it really badly. And one thing that I say repeatedly is that if somebody goes to war with their demons, it's everyone around them that gets hit by the shrapnel. And I think that when you talk about issues with mental health, it can absolutely feel like a war zone.

And I know that that was the case for her. But by the time I was 15, nearly 16, it was just too much for me to be at home. And I ended up leaving home and sleeping rough on the streets of a town in South Wales called Newport, which is one of the homewards locations. It was really hard. It was really hard. When I tell us a bit about what that was like when you were living on the street, such a young age as well, what did you have to endure? So I would sleep in shop doorways, I'd sleep in, there was a church at the end of a road

called Commercial Street and opposite like the police station, there was this big church there and it was kind of derelict and it had a porch that was open. So we'd, me and a couple of others that were also rough sleeping at the time, we'd kind of bed down there because it gave you a bit of shelter. We'd sleep in derelict buildings anywhere where you had a bit of shelter really. And it was horrible. People would, on a good day, they might walk past me like I wasn't even there. I felt like a ghost in some respects. You know, that everyone would just be going about their day, which is normal, and why shouldn't they go about their day? But you felt so isolated and so unseen, invisible almost. And that was at best.

That was at best. Kicked, punched, spat at, urinated on, bottles chucked at me. My stuff trashed, attacked. So one of the things I did on that point, if you're comfortable to talk about it, in the documentary there is a young woman, Lainey, who has had quite a rough journey as well. And she's in a hospital, hopefully on her way to finding a secure, more permanent accommodation. And one of the things that she touches on and her key worker mentions is that it's, you know, homelessness is hard for everyone. For women, it's especially hard. And I wonder if you can speak to that at all.

Absolutely. There was an incredible vulnerability that I experienced. That was something that I felt like I was living day to day and you just couldn't shake it. Lainey says something in the documentary about asking people for money and they say, yeah, but in exchange for sex. And she doesn't want to have sex with anybody. And that was an experience that I could absolutely relate to. Very often, you would hope for a bed for the night,

but it came with a cost. For me, it was a cost that I wasn't willing to bear. I often talk about my relationship with a dog that I had at that point in time. He was called Menace. He was a stray dog and I was a stray girl. He was a bloody menace. But I loved him. And he was your pal, your protector, was he? Yeah. I mean, not a protector in the sense that he would physically protect me, but for me, I was completely socially and emotionally isolated. And he offered me that kind of relationship,

that connection, that bond. And I know looking back, I didn't appreciate it at the time, but looking back, I know that because I had that connection, I wasn't then seeking it somewhere else with someone that might have exploited my vulnerabilities. There were lots of other women that I knew that were rough sleeping at the same time as me or who were involved in that area. They'd ended up getting hooked on drugs and then they ended up doing sex work to fund

the habit. It had started from a relationship with someone that they thought was a relationship, but actually it's someone that's looking to exploit them. I look back and I think, I'm so lucky that that wasn't me. It could have been, it really could have been. But I really think that that bond and that connection that I had with Menace was one of the things that protected me.

I love the sound of Menace, he sounds great. So it's interesting hearing you talking about homelessness because a lot of people who don't know much about the subject might think that, okay, you don't have a home. But you're saying there was something else that was taken away from you, that it was a sense of self, that you were a ghost, that you lost that sense of self, which must be massively debilitating for your own sense of self-esteem. How did you get out of that situation? Did you find somebody who was able to help you? It was really difficult for me at the time because when I first started

rough sleeping, I didn't want to go into care. I was terrified of going into care. And I think when you are raised in an environment where your caregiver loves you really deeply, but they don't have the psychological or the physical resources to care for you properly, you're raised to see any kind of authority through a lens of mistrust. So I didn't want to go into care. I didn't want anyone to know that I was experiencing homelessness. I didn't want to tell the school.

I carried on going to school. We carried on going to school while living on the street. Yeah, carried on going to school. More, was it GCSEs or something? GCSEs, I sat my GCSEs when I was rough sleeping. Yeah. No, so you turn up for your exams. Yeah, I saw the big issue to get enough money

to buy those, and do you know those study guides, those student study guides? Because it was hit or miss where I could keep my books. And there was a derelict building that we were staying in at one point. When I say we, there were me and a couple of other people that were off sleeping at the same time,

we'd often find somewhere together. And my books were in a box there, and they got destroyed by that, by one guy that was staying there at the same time who took objection to the fact that I was Jewish. It was a really, really horrendous experience and he tore up all my books and stuff. So then I left them in the big issue office, the ones that I did have left, but I didn't have anything to study with. So when I was studying the big issue, I was putting a bit aside, getting something to eat every day

and then bought these little study guides and I studied for my GCSEs. I can remember sitting in a park, just reading through these books, waiting for my GCSEs and it was really difficult. But I was worried about people knowing because I didn't trust authority. And by the time-

You didn't tell any of your teachers and your friends didn't know. But one teacher actually walked past me when I was selling the big issue and crossed the road. Really? Wow. It's interesting hearing you say that. And actually when you were talking earlier about

how dehumanizing the people just walk past you, spit at you, or don't even respond to you. I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about how that felt. Because one of the things that you have spoken about when we first met you a few months ago at a briefing, and one of the things William's been talking about for the past year is as much as providing and producing more permanent, secure housing for people who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness, one of the things he's desperately keen to do is change the perceptions around homelessness, what it is, what it means, the unseen homelessness. But also, I remember I sat down with him last year and took an interview with him and the

key thing he was keen to get across was people's preconceptions of it. He said, you see someone on the street rough sleeping, you immediately jump to a preconception about how they've got there and why they're there and maybe they all don't want to help themselves. And I just wanted to ask you how, first of all, how that feels as someone who's experienced it, and secondly, how important you really do think changing the narrative around the issue is long term. It's crucial, and I'll explain why it's crucial. When I was experiencing homelessness, it felt so isolating and I felt so dehumanized on many, many occasions.

And whilst at the time that you're experiencing homelessness, you can kind of, you know, someone had walked past me and they'd kick my stuff or, you know, they'd shout at me or all kinds of stuff. And I can remember thinking to myself, do you know what? It's one person, one person out of seven billion in the world. Why should your opinion matter to me? You can rationalize that. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me. Why does it matter? But the reality is we're human beings and we're hardwired to absorb the way people respond to us as social information. It informs the way that we expect the next person to respond to us. Then it becomes how we speak to ourselves.

It becomes our inner narrative, that little voice inside our head that tells us where we are in relation to the rest of the world. And so when you're experiencing homelessness, it's not just that you don't have a roof over your head. You have no stability. You have no secure base on which you can go and explore or take a risk or grow yourself or be better than you are today to try to do something even better tomorrow. You have none of that. Your headspace is completely consumed

with an attempt to try to survive. And when you have then these experiences that are happening around you that tell you you have no value, you have no sense of worth. It's that that you carry with you. And so for me, and this is one of the things that I've spoken to the prince about,

it's not just about getting a roof over your head and having stability. There is a recovery from homelessness. And the recovery is about how you see yourself in relation to the rest of the world and convincing yourself, starting to believe that you do have value and worth in comparison to comparison. I didn't tell anyone about my homelessness for more than 20 years because I felt this stigma.

There's such a stigma, there is still such a stigma around it. Massively. And how old are you now? 41. So you've kept that secret for a long time. I kept it a secret for a very long time. Now you're coming out. It's interesting that you're a firefighter as well, I think, because you're there to kind of,

well, protect lots of things, but that kind of building and that sense of self. One thing that the Homewards is quite keen to promote as well is this idea of the kind of multi-agency, and it sounds very kind of corporate speak. Wrap around services. Yeah, this idea that let's look at how schools can intervene, let's look at how all these different

agencies can kind of talk to one another from the police, the firefighters and all that sort of stuff. How did you, first of all, how did you get out of your situation? I've got an image of young Sabrina in my mind going to school and having this kind of strange life outside of school where you're homeless and you've had to grow up quickly,

whereas all your friends and peers are going home to a meal and a warm bed. life outside of school where you're homeless and you've had to grow up quickly, whereas all your friends and peers are going home to a meal and a warm bed. How do you get from that to build up to be what you are today, which is this pretty impressive and or inspiring individual with all these kind of accolades? Well, I actually solved the big issue. And the big issue is amazing because it's something that as a vendor vendor you buy for cost price and then you sell on for a profit. So every big issue vendor that you see is actually a micro entrepreneur.

They're running their own mini business in a way. And that enabled me, I think, to have some agency, which is something I severely lacked in the beginning when I was experiencing homelessness. And it gave me some self-esteem and something to focus on. And it took a while, but eventually I was able to save up enough to get into accommodation. There were a few false starts. I had a room in a shared house initially and I got attacked by someone else living there. And he put me in the hospital and I didn't feel safe there after that. So I went back out. And then I had a little bed sit, but I felt awful that other people that I knew

were still sleeping out. So I'd let them sleep over and they'd be doing drugs and they'd trash the place. And I wouldn't have been a very good tenant when I look back. And so I'd be back out again. And then I stayed in a van for a while and that was a bit more secure.

But eventually, eventually I was able to save up enough to put down a deposit on a very cheap rented flat away from the city center, away from people that I knew where I felt like I could have a fresh start. And that was the beginning. And Menace, my little dog, he was the thing that transitioned with me and I think kept me kind of kept me grounded. He was my kind of secure attachment, if you like, during that period. And it was then when secure accommodation started to become a reality, I started to think about what else could become a reality. And that's when I started to think about the fire service. Why the fire service?

Such a privilege, because you're trusted by people to know what to do. And I had the worst day I've ever had. And they trust you to come in. And if you can make it better, but at the very least stop it from getting any worse. And I think in a way I wanted to help people in a way that no one had been able to help me.

So look, I know the context is completely different, but I think the sentiment is the same and that attracted me to it. And it's funny, you know, because when I started to say to people, do you know what, I'm thinking of being a firefighter. They'd all laugh and they'd be like, oh my God, Sabrina, you're too small, you're going to get in the way, give me that. And I think that spurred me on more. Knowing you a little bit now, I realise that sort of thing that you think, okay, come on, bring it. But what we see you doing in this programme is actually kind of firefighting in a different way, because you're going to people who are on the street and

people who help them. And we see you talking to a man who's lived in a tent for eight years and so that's a big issue. And the issues that he's had and it transpires, spoiler alert, that he's one of the reasons he moved out of home was that he had this terrible fire that sadly killed his mother. And again, speaks to your qualifications as firefighter, but then another guy who's got this great success story that went from a kind of seven stone drug addict on the street to work himself up to now be in his own place, Wayne, in the program,

and he's now reconnected with his daughter, and you took him to the palace, so you're actually doing a lot of work in the program on behalf of the Prince. You know, you go out and meet these people for him because it's hard for him to kind of walk around unnoticed, I suppose. How did those conversations come about with the Prince where he said, look, can you go and, you know, do some of this research? First of all, it was an incredible honor for me to be asked to become an advocate for homewards. But one of the things that was really important to me in advocacy is not to just be a figurehead or

a name on a piece of paper, but to actually go out and do something that can contribute to solving the experience that I and so many other people have. There are so many different facets of homelessness, which I think the documentary does a great job at shining a light on, that people don't even associate with homelessness, the hidden homelessness. But my experience of street homelessness is being written off.

And the demographic of both Wayne and Vincent, their older gentleman over the age of 50, seen as entrenched rough sleepers, mental injuries, they've got physical injuries, drug addictions, huge support needs. So actually transitioning from a life of experiencing homelessness to a life where you are not just in secure accommodation, but thinking about the contribution that you can make

to your place within the world, the value that you have and that you give yourself is a really tough journey. And what I will say is when I was rough sleeping, some of the people who showed me the most compassion and really looked out for me and actually genuinely cared and in some respects helped to keep me safe from some of the other vulnerabilities that I was exposed to were people of exactly that demographic, entrenched rough sleepers that everybody had written off. The people that others were avoiding because they were sat there taking drugs and cooking up heroin on the side of the street.

People would understandably go, well, I'm going to walk over there. But they were kind. They were thoughtful. They had, for me, I'm thinking of one person in particular, and I won't say his name because he'll have surviving family, but he really, really stopped some horrible things from happening to me. And I will forever love him for what he did. He's dead now, sadly. But when I look at that demographic of people and I see how I saw myself as having no worth and no value, and I've gone on to a as having no worth and no value. And I've gone on to a career in public service. I've literally been privileged enough to be trusted to save people's lives.

I've done a PhD, I've done research that's changed the way that we deal with fires. So I like to think I've been able to put something back into the world, but I was written off in the same way. And so what was important to me about this documentary was not just to go out on behalf of the prints and find things that work, but really find things that work that really demonstrate to people that you shouldn't write others off.

Your situation that you're in doesn't determine where you end up. It's just the position that you start from. And I think seeing both Vincent's journey, and he was an electrician, he had a family, he had a normal life and he had a fire. This is the guy who did the electric on the Millennium stadium. That's it.

He never recovered from losing his mother in a fire. And he finds it incredibly difficult to sleep inside a house now because of his experience. It comes up to Williams, you know, other great passion for mental health, doesn't it? It'll hurt that he, you know, he's looking at all these different elements of the mental health aspect that wasn't prevented. Then you end up to this other problem and end up there.

That meeting at Windsor Castle on the program looked very emotional. Can you tell us about what that day was like? It was incredible. So we took Wayne, who had experienced homelessness. He was the one who was seven stone, taking drugs, entrenched rough sleeping. And he's now living in his own house. He has kicked his drug habit completely. And his next step is to give up alcohol completely. And he's almost there. He looked quite tearful when he met the prince. He was. He's got some really severe health problems, exacerbated by alcohol completely. And he's almost there. He looked quite cheerful when he met the prince. He was, he's got some really severe health problems exacerbated by his experience.

And he talked about the feeling of people writing him off until the woman that found him on the street and literally wrapped him in a blanket and put him in her car, Gemma took him to hospital. He said, he got very emotional. So he was saying to William, people have written me off and thank you for not writing me off.

For people who don't know and aren't experts on Homewoods and haven't seen the documentary yet, just in a nutshell, what is Homewoods trying to do? You're an advocate, what is the project trying to do? The aim of Homewoods is to try to make homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated. And if we can end hopelessness within the five-year program or at least demonstrate that it is possible,

then that would be the aims achieved. So, Homewoods has got six key locations, six target locations, and the idea is to build examples of how it could work that can then be scaled up and built on and done elsewhere as well. And it looks to examples where it has worked previously and in the documentary, you'll hear them talking about the Finland model and Finland have done something.

Homeless first. Yeah, they've done some incredible work. They're half homeless as it said in the program. It is awesome, so it is possible. And I think what Homewoods does is not just shine a light on the problem, but it looks at getting all of the people around the table, what we need around the table to help to end homelessness and get some talking to each other. We can't underestimate the convening power that the Prince has. And I feel

so fortunate that he has chosen a topic such as homelessness to really shine a light on and drive change. Well, it was interesting seeing him in some of those behind the scenes meetings of documentary where you see him bringing private landlords to the table in Sheffield. And then afterwards, you know, him talking about pulling some levers, he'll pull the levers he can.

And then afterwards, some of those landlords do give up more of their private rental accommodation for people who are experiencing what risk of homes, which they wouldn't, which they would have been nervous to have done before. Absolutely. So, and I think Goward, the other thing he talks about and you see in the documentary is getting all the different like practical partners on board. So you have Lainey, the young woman who's now in a hostel looking for more-

She's great, isn't she? She's fantastic. She's got a cat like you had to have. I love her cat. She's, you see her starting the job- It's a connection. In Pret a Manger, who are coming on board and providing or helping to provide jobs for people who otherwise would have found it very hard.

Because I remember when we first met you at the Homewoods briefing, one of the things you said was before you found that route out, it was really hard to know who to talk to and who to ask for help. And you do slightly feel like the people whose journeys we see in the documentary, I just feel like they've been very lucky to find the one person who sees them on the street. It just feels like that isn't there yet. That sort of a lot of people just don't know what to do and aren't going to be found by a Gemma or you know, a Sophie. And part of it is resourcing, actually, because it's really, really difficult. You know, we all know what the

economic situation is like, and having the resources that you need to solve a problem is always really challenging. And what I love about Homewoods is it's taking everything that's there already and encouraging us all to look at it in a different way. It's not focused on what the problems are and what we can't do. It's really putting a laser focus on what we can do.

And that means inevitably doing things differently. There's a point where you look quite excited. You come out of meeting somebody who's changed their life around and you're kind of going, yeah, let's do this elsewhere. Let's kind of get on board, which is exactly the sort of message that William is giving throughout this sort of two-part documentary, isn't it? That he's sort of trying to say, well, we need hope, we need optimism. It's always this kind of upbeat, like, yes, there's a problem, but we can make it better if we just kind of building even,

that sort of thing. So it seems like you and the Prince are on, was it good working with him? This has been going on, this has been filmed for quite over a long period of time, sort of 18 months or so, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah, and it covered the process. Through quite a difficult time for the Prince, of course,

that he persisted with this project and the television project when it might have been easier just to bin off the documentary. Absolutely. And I think really that's testament to his commitment to really challenging what we think about when we're talking about homelessness and really helping to try to solve the challenges that are contributing to homelessness. He's really committed. And one thing that I've taken from working with him is how invested he is. He really appreciates the human side of the story. And I think for me, that's an incredible quality of leadership that I for one feel really fortunate

to have a monarch that is doing that. You know, it's wonderful. So I think it's been fantastic to be involved with. I am really, really taken by his perspective on it and his belief in driving it forward. One of the interesting things about the documentary I think the people will be, you know, it's the question that always comes up. I was going to say it's the criticism. It's the question you have to ask him when you talk to him about it. I did, other people did, the documentary maker does. You

hear LBC questioning it in one of the clips is he's someone who, you know, is, has, you know, a very privileged background, which he acknowledges, he has access to many homes. And the question is, well, how could you begin to understand homelessness when you know, all these things? Are you the, the you the Prince of the Palaces, the best person to be driving this? Well, there's one point in the documentary where William says, you know, we want to do this. And John Byrd says, well, do you mean it?

And William says, yes, I do mean it. But he's challenging him. And I think the Prince quite likes that because he answers the critics, doesn't he? In the program, he says, you know, if I, I think if I answered every critic, I'd be here all day. And then he says, I think criticism drives you forward.

There's no, he can't fail in this project because he knows there's criticism. I think also the other thing that's interesting is how important do you think it is for someone like him? He's clearly very keen to see private landowners like himself or the duchy. How important is it to see someone like him do something like Nansledden, the social housing project in Cornwall, which is going to be, I think,

24 new homes. But the key thing is St. Petrox there, the charity and the wraparound services there. What does it mean to have someone like him, as other people say, leading from the front and sort of putting his hand in his pocket himself? I think it's a really, really good example of what can be done. And at what point are you too privileged to want to be able to push a social change forward? Does it depend on your tax bracket? Do you have to have a certain amount of experience to do it? What qualifies you? So I hear the

cynicism and I hear the criticism, but it doesn't really hold anything for me. It's also clearly for him, as we've always known, given that Centrepoint was his first patronage that his mother, you know, was patron of, the homeless as charity. He talks a lot about his mother, doesn't he, in the documentary? It's real for him. When you get a sense that it really drives him. Yeah, it's sort of, I think it's more than just, it's more than just kind of, am I someone in a privileged position who's not going to do anything? It's something that he's, you know, he's been exposed to from a very young age and feels very strongly about.

Yeah. And actually, it's really lovely seeing that come through in the documentary. And I think equally, when you think about the work that he does and the advocacy that he does, you can see how influenced he's been from his father's work as well, particularly when you look at Earthshot and the environmental work as well. And Anne Sleddon and the duchy, the work that Charles started there. And if you think about Charles' early work around environmentalism, he was really ahead of his time

and he was met with great cynicism. And now the idea that we would be cynical about environmental issues, we'd all kind of look at each other and go, well, no, it's really obvious, but it wasn't back then. So you can see, I think, how Prince William has really taken those influences from both his mother and his father to stand tall and continue to progress with things

that he believes in that he knows can make a difference, because he knows it's the right thing to do. He keeps talking. It's fine, but you carry on pushing on. Yeah, he talks about his platform, doesn't he? And he's very, I think Mick talked about this afterwards in the Q and A after we saw the screening that he likes the documentary because it's a way

for everybody else to see the kind of behind the scenes William that obviously you get to see Sabrina, that Mick from the passage gets to see. There's a great scene of him helping to serve Christmas dinner at the passage. Being bossed about by the cook. Claudette. Claudette in the kitchen. He just goes, come on William, at the passage, being bossed about by the cook, by Claudette in the kitchen, who just goes, come on William, clear the plates, chop chop. And you sort of see him.

She ticks him off, doesn't she, if you're going to have a chat when he should be working. Clearly got a bond with a lot of people there over a long period of time, because he does a lot of private visits that we don't know about, don't see, we aren't on the road to four. And I remember talking to Mick about that last year.

He's like, he comes here more than, you know, a lot, more than any of you know. And I think what's interesting is, you know, to have that, to be in that position. And when he goes into the passage or whether it's Santa Point or anything else, people there just feel they can talk to him quite freely. And you talked about it in the documentary.

Perhaps he's able to have that empathy because he's had his own trauma in life. And you know, you've experienced trauma he has. I thought that was a good point you made, Sabrina, in the thing that people probably don't realize it or they think it's historic. But just tell us what you were talking about before, because that was a really interesting kind of joining up the dots of why Prince William is as he is. Yeah, because I mean you don't have to have experienced homelessness to be able to appreciate some of the factors that have contributed to homelessness. And when you look at people's experiences more often than not there's trauma involved, whether it was a trauma that led

to their experience of homelessness or the trauma of experiencing it at the time. And I think although Prince William hasn't experienced being homeless, what he has experienced is trauma. He's a human and he's experienced that human pain of a traumatic loss. Losing his mother at 15. Yeah, so I really think that it enables him to empathize in a way that people might not immediately think. I think I remember talking to Shay O'Bacon from Centerpoint last year and he was, he slept rough

with William when William did that. Did a night under a bridge. I did a night under a bridge in London. It was cold. He just did one night. I remember talking to Shay last year and he said, they woke up in the morning and William was very, very quiet and they walked together for a long time, just rolled up the sleeping bags and walked. And he said, one of the things that William said to me was, yes, it had been very challenging, very hard. And he just thought, this was a long time ago. And William was, long before William started his official mental health work, He said, I really worry about young people who have to do that day in, day out, how they must feel, how it must make them feel, how it must affect their mental health. So even then he was sort of thinking about it wasn't just about sleeping rough.

It was about much more than that. It was about the wider impact. But it's a you know, the catchphrases for Homewoods are to make homelessness brief, rare, and unrepeated. But, you know, he's come out very punchy and he says, we shouldn't be living with it. I don't think we should be living with homelessness. The documentary is called Prince William, We Can End Homelessness. It's a very positive lofty ambition.

Well, he even says about his mother, doesn't he? He's saying that she'd think I was mad. She'd think I'd be mad to start home. Is it realistic, do you think? Can homelessness be ended in five years? Why not? Why not? I mean, from my perspective, if we put enough focus on it

and we get enough of the right people around the table and really focus on breaking the cycle and working on prevention, then I think my argument is why not? And why wouldn't that be what we'd aspire to? You know, surely one person rough sleeping should be too many. So why wouldn't we say the ambition is to end homelessness and not stop striving until we've met that ambition? What do you want people to take away from watching the documentary? If there is one or two things that you hope it will sort of focus people's minds on, what is it? I really hope that it helps to take away the stigma from experiencing homelessness.

There are many forms of homelessness, not just street rough sleeping, but we heard a lot about the hidden homelessness and the temporary accommodation. The sofa surfing. Yeah. And lots of people that might not consider themselves to be experiencing homelessness actually are when you look at the circumstances surrounding it. So I think for me, if there's one thing that I would love people to take away from watching the documentary, it's to change the way that they think about homelessness, to help to eradicate that stigma so that the journey, the recovery from homelessness in whatever form it is

will be that bit easier for the people that are going through it because thereby the grace of God go any of us. I can see why Prince William is such a fan of yours Sabrina. You speak so movingly and passionately and it's a real inspiration to hear you talk about what is ultimately a very complex subject but you just bring all the threads together so neatly and really kind of illuminate it for us. Thank you so much for joining us. Will you come back and talk to us again? My pleasure.

Maybe in finest time when you have ended home business. And honestly thank you for helping us to shine a light on it because we couldn't do it without you guys as well and we appreciate it so thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.