Thread by @our_MoH

A Public Service Announcement from your cynical old Museum of Homelessness on the #PolicingBill

Whilst it's great that the Lords tabled a surprise amendment to repeal the #VagrancyAct, we caution people not to be distracted or too victorious about this. Why?
Well....🧵

What we know is that whilst people *are* arrested under the Vagrancy Act, which is despicable and archaic, the methods that are far more often used to make the homeless population's life a misery are Public Space Protection Orders and Community Protection Notices.

PSPOs and CPNs are from other legislation, specifically the Anti Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014.

This current #PolicingBill is the 2014 act on steroids.

So repealing the Vagrancy Act may not make much of a material difference tbh. Our community is still going to be criminalised for existing. 🤷

We note another amendment was put in by a Labour Lord Croaker to fast track PSPO powers. That has gone through and we see it as bad news

Anyhoo, at least the Vagrancy Act does symbolically matter. It means people can't be arrested for sleeping rough, which is good. Right?

How could we have a society with such a persecuting approach to people who live outside? Right?!

Well actually the Lords amendments to the parts of the bill that will destroy the lives of GRT communities who live nomadically were not successful.

So these laws will actually be devastating for nomadic people.

So we would urge caution. There's a sense this morning that it's progressive to repeal the Vagrancy Act whilst simultaneously bringing in laws that persecute and make homeless other communities who live outside the norm.

It's not.

No one is free till we are all free. ❤️

Stay tuned for other unpopular and inconvenient threads in 2022 lol 😘