The Law That Criminalised Me Is Finally Gone: Why Repealing the Vagrancy Act Matters

There are moments in life that make you stop and reflect on just how far you’ve come. For me, the repeal of the Vagrancy Act is one of those moments.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spoken to journalists, radio presenters, and charities about what this historic change actually means. I’ve been asked the same question over and over again: “How does it feel?”

The truth is, I still don’t think I’ve found the right words.

How do you explain what it feels like to know that the very thing you were once judged, punished, and looked down on for is no longer considered a crime? How do you make sense of the fact that the life you once desperately wanted to escape has become part of a national conversation that is helping to shape change?

It feels surreal. But more than anything, it feels deeply emotional. Not because this is about me, but because I know what this moment means for so many people whose voices have never been heard.

Why Homelessness is Never the Beginning of the Story

When people think about homelessness, they almost always start at the wrong place.

They see the person sleeping in a doorway, sitting on a pavement, or asking for spare change and that is where the story begins in their minds. What they don’t see is everything that came before it: the childhood trauma and abuse, the broken relationships and grief, the addiction and mental exhaustion, and the years of believing you simply do not matter.

Homelessness is rarely the beginning of someone’s story. More often than not, it is the point where years of unresolved pain finally become visible.

I know that because I lived it. Long before I was homeless, I was a little girl carrying far more than any child should ever have to carry. I went into foster care at a young age, and although I was physically safer, I was still carrying emotional wounds that didn’t simply disappear.

Trauma doesn’t vanish just because your circumstances change. It has a way of following you into adulthood, quietly influencing the way you see yourself and the choices you make. Looking back now, I can see that I wasn’t a difficult child or a hopeless adult. I was someone who had experienced trauma and had never been given the chance to heal from it.

Eventually, that trauma led me down a path I never imagined I would walk. Addiction took hold, and before I knew it, I had lost almost everything. There came a point where I didn’t have a home, I didn’t have stability, and I couldn’t see a future beyond surviving another day.

The True Cost of Surviving on the Streets

People sometimes ask me what homelessness was really like. I usually tell them that it wasn’t just the lack of a roof over my head that hurt the most, it was the feeling of becoming completely invisible.

When you live on the streets, you experience a unique and devastating kind of isolation. It is the avoided eye contact from passersby who look right through you. It is the immediate assumptions made about your character before a single word is spoken. It is hearing conversations about “the homeless” as though people are discussing a public nuisance instead of human beings, and constantly wondering whether anyone sees the person behind the circumstances.

When you’re trying to survive, your world becomes incredibly small. You’re not thinking about five-year plans or career ambitions. You are in survival mode. You’re thinking about where you’ll sleep, whether you’ll be safe, how you’ll get through the next twenty-four hours, and whether anyone even notices you’re there.

I wasn’t thriving. I wasn’t living the life I wanted. I was surviving in the only way I knew how.

Why Repealing the 200-Year-Old Vagrancy Act Matters

What made surviving on the streets even harder was knowing there was a law that effectively treated people like me as criminals simply because we had nowhere to live.

The Vagrancy Act had existed for more than two centuries. Imagine carrying the crushing shame of homelessness, and then having a law reinforce the idea that your mere existence in a public space was something to be policed rather than understood. Imagine already feeling broken, and then being made to feel like you were the problem.

That leaves a permanent mark. It’s one of the primary reasons I care so deeply about changing the national conversation around homelessness. We have to stop asking, “What’s wrong with them?” and start asking, “What happened to them?”

Those six words have the power to change lives because they replace judgement with curiosity, and blame with compassion.

When I was invited to share my lived experience with ministers, parliamentarians, and others working to change the law, I didn’t walk into those rooms thinking only about my own story. I thought about every person who was still sleeping rough. I thought about the people who felt they had no voice, and about those who would never have the opportunity to sit around those tables and explain what homelessness really feels like.

I carried them with me. To know that my story helped contribute to those conversations is an incredible privilege, but it also comes with immense responsibility. Real change doesn’t happen because of one person. It happens because charities, campaigners, people with lived experience, organisations, and decision-makers keep showing up, keep listening, and keep refusing to accept the status quo.

The repeal of the Vagrancy Act will not end homelessness overnight. People will still sleep rough tonight. Families will still face impossible choices. We cannot pretend that repealing one law fixes all of that.

But what it does do is shift the cultural paradigm. It confirms that homelessness should never be treated as a crime. It acknowledges that compassion is far more powerful than punishment. And it reminds society that people need support, not stigma.

From Lived Experience to Lasting Resilience

People often tell me that I’m inspiring, but I don’t really see myself that way. I’m simply someone who reached a point where I realised I had two choices: I could allow everything I’d been through to define the rest of my life, or I could begin the difficult process of rebuilding it.

Rebuilding wasn’t quick. It wasn’t easy. Healing never is.

Recovery wasn’t about waking up one morning and suddenly feeling better. It was about making difficult choices over and over again. It was about learning to believe in myself when I had very little evidence that I should. It was about accepting that my past had shaped me, but didn’t have to imprison me.

Slowly, life began to change. The woman who once believed she had no future went on to write books, stand on stages, speak to organisations about resilience, and walk through the doors of Parliament to share the very experiences she once tried so hard to hide.

If you’d told the younger version of me that any of this would happen, I wouldn’t have believed you. Not because I lacked ambition, but because trauma has a way of convincing you that you are only ever going to be what happened to you.

I know now that isn’t true. Our experiences shape us, but they don’t have to define us.

That belief has become the foundation of everything I do today. Whether I’m speaking to a room full of business leaders, working with young people, or talking to someone who feels like they’ve reached rock bottom, my message is always the same:

Resilience isn’t about pretending life hasn’t hurt you. It’s about refusing to let that hurt have the final word.

Your Past is Not Your Life Sentence

If you’re reading this while you’re in your own dark chapter, I want you to know that I see you.

I know what it feels like to believe nobody cares. I know what it feels like to think your life will never get better. I know what it feels like to carry shame that doesn’t belong to you.

But I also know this: the person you are today is not the person you have to be forever. Your circumstances are not your identity, and your past is not your life sentence.

The repeal of the Vagrancy Act is a powerful reminder that change is possible, not just in our laws, but in our attitudes, our systems, and our individual lives. Years ago, I was surviving on the streets under a law that treated people like me as the problem. Today, I am using that same story to advocate for compassion, resilience, and hope.

If that tells us anything, it’s this: no matter how impossible life feels today, your story is still being written. Don’t let this chapter convince you it is the ending.

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going

The repeal of the Vagrancy Act is an important milestone, but there is still so much work to do. Homelessness cannot be solved by legislation alone. It requires compassion, understanding, sustained investment in support services, and a willingness to listen to the people who have lived it.

I would love to hear your thoughts. What does this moment mean to you? How can we continue to build a society where people are met with dignity instead of judgement?

If this story resonated with you, please consider sharing it. The more we challenge public misconceptions about homelessness and the more we listen to lived experience, the closer we come to creating real, lasting change.

Thats it from me Kerri D, stay blessed!