Homelessness and EU Citizenship in a Borderless Europe

Institutionalized discrimination against homeless EU citizens as “non-entitled” migrants raises very serious legal, empirical, and normative questions about EU citizenship itself. After all, isn’t the presumption of “non-entitlement” that has taken hold in various Member States the very opposite of what EU citizenship has been supposed to achieve as a fundamental status offering non-discrimination on the basis of nationality?[9] This (short) research article mainly focuses on the fundamental legal questions: what rights do homeless people derive from their status as EU citizens in Member States other than the Member States from which they originate? Under what conditions should EU Member States offer homelessness support to EU citizens, and can homeless EU citizens be expelled? Before answering these legal questions, however, the article draws on existing research to contextualize the social reality of homelessness among EU citizens and situate the phenomenon within the European integration project. After answering the legal questions, the article makes a first attempt at explaining why the institutionalized discrimination of EU citizens can persist in Member States.