Gail Porter on William’s homelessness campaign: He really wants to help

Gail Porter says that the Prince of Wales “definitely wants to get behind and help” those who are going through homelessness.

The former children’s TV presenter spoke to William about her own experience of not being able to afford to live in her own home for the ITV1 and ITVX documentary Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, which continues airing on Thursday at 9pm.

She told STV’s Lorraine show that she had felt a “bit too embarrassed to talk about it all and it kind of caught up with me”, before she felt comfortable in recent years to be an advocate for homelessness and be outspoken about what she went through.

Scottish TV personality Porter said: “It was just nice to know that he (William) just definitely wants to get behind and help.”

Porter compared her experience to being a “hidden homeless person” as she couch-surfed at friends’ places while in the limelight when worked “dried up”, and said the issue is unlikely to be resolved but can be helped.

She said: “I think you know it’s not going to end, (this campaign) it’s not out to end it, but it’s to get people to be aware of it and to make it so it doesn’t last for a long time.

“So if someone’s homeless they get the help that they need, and we can progress, as opposed to just saying,’Oh, it’s all going to end in five years’, because you can’t just do that in five years.

“I just hope that people get involved and understand what goes on in other people’s lives, and just be aware that people are homeless or they’re hidden homeless.”

The Prince of Wales launched his five-year Homewards initiative last year that aims to tackle all forms of homelessness, which “touches the lives of far too many people”.

Porter, an advocate for Homewards, also recalled she spent a night on a bench at London’s Hampstead Heath during one challenging moment.

She said: “I was just going through a difficult time. I’d lost my hair. Work wasn’t really coming in, bills were going out, and it just (was) one of those things. It’s weird that now that I’ll get to talk about it, they can happen to anybody.

“I never expected in a million years that that would happen to me. ”

Porter was first diagnosed with alopecia in 2005 and has advocated for mental health as well.