How Homelessness Compromises the Exercise of the Rights of Citizenship in Australia

Abstract

This paper is drawn from an analysis of the impact of the Australian Government’s legal, policy and administrative frameworks on the ability of people who are homeless to access entitlements available to all Australian citizens. Despite a claim to legislative protections and anti discrimination statute, this examination reveals a history of exclusion in which the homeless have been denied equal access to such entitlements, dating from pre-federation through the twenty first century. It concludes by posing an alternative way of thinking that has the potential to reframe and redress the failure to protect and enable the exercise of such rights by those who are homeless.