Not only are you more likely to experience homelessness if you are Black, you’re also more likely to be arrested for it under an archaic law still being used by police.
According to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent to 35 police forces in England and Wales, 8% of people arrested under the Vagrancy Act are Black – twice as high as the proportion of Black people in the total population.
The Vagrancy Act is a law dating back to 1824 that criminalises rough sleeping. It was introduced to deal with ex-servicemen who had become homeless after returning from the Napoleonic Wars.
