Prince William beams alongside his children Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Prince George in a portrait released for Father’s Day
The Prince of Wales said his children will “definitely be exposed” to homelessness as he prepares to launch a new project on the issue.
The prince said he had been considering the right time to take them to a homeless shelter, as his mother Princess Diana did with him when he was 11.
He is set to launch a new five-year project to tackle the problem this month.
The interview comes after a new portrait of the prince, pictured smiling with his three children, was released by Kensington Palace to mark Father’s Day.
In his first newspaper interview as Prince of Wales, he told the Sunday Times that he spoke to his children, Prince George, Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte, during the school run about people they could see sitting outside supermarkets.
He said: “When I left this morning one of the things I was thinking about was when is the right time to take George, Charlotte or Louis to a homeless organisation?”
“I think when I can balance it with their training, they will definitely be exposed to it. During school we talk about what we see.
“When we were in London, driving back and forth, we would regularly see people sitting outside supermarkets and we would talk about it.
“I would say to the kids, ‘Why are they there? What’s going on?’
“They (will) grow up knowing that actually, you know what, some of us are very lucky, some of us need a little helping hand, some of us need to do a little more where we can to help others improve their lives.”
The Prince visited a homeless shelter run by The Passage with his mother and brother in 1993.
The prince would follow in the footsteps of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, who in 1993 took him and his brother to visit a homeless shelter in London run by The Passage, an organization of which he is now a patron.
Earlier this year, he recalled the experience and said: “My mum introduced me to the cause of homelessness from quite a young age and I’m really glad she did.
“I think she would be disappointed that we’re still not further along in terms of addressing homelessness and preventing it than when she was interested and involved in it.”
Later this month, the prince will launch a “really big project” from his and his wife’s charity, the Royal Foundation. He hopes it will provide “living conditions up and down the country that improve the lives of people who need the first rung of the ladder”.
It will be new advocacy for the prince, who has primarily campaigned and spoken out on the issue of mental health in recent years.
He says he is particularly concerned about youth homelessness and part of his project will be to prevent it. The number of 16- to 24-year-olds who are homeless or at risk of homelessness is 122,000, according to Centrepoint Freedom of Information requests to councils.
“To me, 122,000 is too high a number,” he said. “We need to get ahead of the curve to stop this becoming more and more fixed.”
The prince also revealed when asked that there are “absolutely” plans for social housing in the Duchy of Cornwall – the estate given to the crown prince that provides him with an income.
Prince William, who is also patron of homeless charity Centrepoint, previously made headlines for sleeping rough in Blackfriars, London, overnight to highlight the plight of homelessness.
