Prince William is being praised for the “compassion” and “empathy” he shows for the unhoused.

The challenges he has witnessed in his own life inform how he interacts with those who have experienced real hardship, according to a woman who lived on the streets when she was a teen and is now a successful fire chief.

Sabrina Cohen-Hatton recently spent time with the Prince of Wales, 42, at Windsor, introducing a longtime rough sleeper to him as an advocate and supporter of William’s Homewards program.

“One thing that the prince does know is trauma. You really see that coming through with the empathy and the compassion that he had when talking to those who’ve previously experienced homelessness,” she says.

“One thing that I noticed is that he is really, really passionate about the human impact of this,” Cohen-Hatton adds. “He doesn’t see [Homewards] as something to be the figurehead of, he really cares about the impact on people. I was really taken by how powerfully he wanted to help.”

Her comments come as Prince William celebrates the one-year point in his ambitious five-year project to make homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated.” The royal heir has been committed to the cause since he started his public life after university and was inspired by his late mother, Princess Diana, who took him and his brother, Prince Harry, to shelters, adopting Centrepoint was one of his first patronages.

Prince William’s spokesman says, “He knows it is an issue that is far too present in our society. He also firmly believes that change is possible. He launched Homewards to demonstrate that homelessness is not inevitable, and if we can come together to tackle the issue, it is possible for it to be ended.”

On the morning of July 11, Prince William will visit Lambeth in London, where he is meeting people from the six key areas of the United Kingdom where pilot plans are being put into place. He will spend time getting updates on the ambitious program and make a short speech. Lambeth — along with Sheffield, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole in England, Newport in Wales, Northern Ireland and Aberdeen in Scotland — are the pilot areas for his mission. In each location, a coalition is tasked with finding answers that can be scaled up to be taken elsewhere around the U.K.

This year, they have laid the groundwork, as Liz Laurence, program director of Homewards at the Royal Foundation, said in a briefing on the initial 12 months. “Unprecedented levels of coalitions” have been created in each of the six areas, she adds. There are 11 industry-leading companies who provide expertise and support and they are shifting towards prevention in each of the areas.