Outside the mortgage belt: homeless youth, voting and citizenship

In representative democracies such as Australia the universal right of suffrage gives citizens the right to elect representatives to parliament. Despite the claim of 'universality' some individuals are explicitly denied this right and others persistently fail to take it up. This latter group includes youth and homeless people. This paper explores the themes of 'home', 'citizenship' and 'the right of franchise' with emphasis on the meaning of home in a cultural and political context in Australia's representative democracy. These themes are explored through the eyes of young people with compromised access to a home. I argue that the 'citizen-subject' of representative democracies is one who has a 'home' and that young homeless people 'outside the mortgage belt' are thus 'outside' of citizenship. I discuss the disenfranchisement of homeless young people in the contexts of the assumption of Australia's representative democracy that citizens have a 'home' they can be represented at, their limited capacity to exercise the right of suffrage due to their lack of a home, and the invisibility of the homeless as citizen-subjects of political discourse.