Youth Homelessness in the Danish Welfare State: How Do Young Persons in Homelessness Mobilise Rights?

This chapter offers a bottom-up perspective on welfare rights in practice, analysing legal mobilisation by young persons in homelessness in the Danish welfare state. Youth homelessness is selected as case motivated by the fact that the number of persons aged 18 to 29 living in homelessness almost doubled from 2009 to 2019. Drawing on the young persons’ narratives, the chapter stresses that their rights consciousness, social network and sense of welfare bureaucracy are decisive for their ability to mobilise welfare rights. Without these factors, the young persons may find themselves lost in a complex welfare state system, leaving them in increasingly marginalised situations. Based on the chapter’s analyses, a distinction is made between active and passive agency to illustrate the dynamic character of legal mobilisation processes.