There Is No Place for Us

Working and Homeless in America

By: Brian Goldstone

Narrated by: Dion Graham, Brian Goldstone

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • Through the “revelatory and gut-wrenching” (Associated Press) stories of five Atlanta families, this landmark work of journalism exposes a new and troubling trend—the dramatic rise of the working homeless in cities across America

“An exceptional feat of reporting, full of an immediacy that calls to mind Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, THE WASHINGTON POST, BOOKPAGE

The working homeless. In a country where hard work and determination are supposed to lead to success, there is something scandalous about this phrase. But skyrocketing rents, low wages, and a lack of tenant rights have produced a startling phenomenon: People with full-time jobs cannot keep a roof over their head, especially in America’s booming cities, where rapid growth is leading to catastrophic displacement. These families are being forced into homelessness not by a failing economy but a thriving one.

In this gripping and deeply reported book, Brian Goldstone plunges readers into the lives of five Atlanta families struggling to remain housed in a gentrifying, increasingly unequal city. Maurice and Natalia make a fresh start in the country’s “Black Mecca” after being priced out of DC. Kara dreams of starting her own cleaning business while mopping floors at a public hospital. Britt scores a coveted housing voucher. Michelle is in school to become a social worker. Celeste toils at her warehouse job while undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. Each of them aspires to provide a decent life for their children—and each of them, one by one, joins the ranks of the nation’s working homeless.

Through intimate, novelistic portraits, Goldstone reveals the human cost of this crisis, following parents and their kids as they go to sleep in cars, or in squalid extended-stay hotel rooms, and head out to their jobs and schools the next morning. These are the nation’s hidden homeless—omitted from official statistics, and proof that overflowing shelters and street encampments are only the most visible manifestation of a far more pervasive problem.

By turns heartbreaking and urgent, There Is No Place for Us illuminates the true magnitude, causes, and consequences of the new American homelessness—and shows that it won’t be solved until housing is treated as a fundamental human right.

Timely in depth look at homelessness

This book is critically important to our present times. An in depth look at homelessness, its seemingly arbitrary but intentional definitions, its myriad ways of shapeshifting and impacting so many people. Strong investigative and reporting journalism.

Stories that need to be told.

I understand the feelings of frustration, depression, optimism & pessimism, despair and those moments of hope for the future, positivity-feeling like things are going my way and then the times when all that positivity went right into the trash. This portion of families & individuals are in every single community. Mostly invisible. I know personally, I hid my situation incredibly well. No one wants to be that person/family-especially if you have kids.

Disturbing even before Trump 2.0

I live in Canada but this is a huge topic. Working poor in a rich country like America? Terrible. But the book covers Bikden and the pandemic. It must be even worse now under Trump 2.0. God help the working poor Americans.

Powerful Combination of storytelling with facts and data

This book was engaging for me because it was set in story. Just reading the facts without the story would not have touched my heart. My heart and mind are fully awake. What I do with that powerful combination is yet to be written.
I am grateful to the author for researching and writing this book and for doing the public radio interview that I heard which prompted me to get the book.

an important work

brings to light the often unseen plight of homeless families, the effect on their children, and the moral cost to society. Finely written and reported.

Hit a nerve.

I do homeless prevention in ohio for veterans specifically, So my office is at once of those shelter intake places referenced in the book.I am often extremely grateful for the resources military veterans have. I would argue it's not enough but it's a lot more then what non-veterans get. I just wanted to say these stories in the book are not uncommon at all in fact since 2020 they have been more and more common. This book to be honest makes me mad about something I was already mad about. Thank you for shining a light on it all. Hopefully a great many people will read this book.

Eye-opening

Great narration. Compelling stories. Excellent analysis throughout. Would recommend for anyone wanting to understand this subject more.

Most important read of 2025

Easily the most urgent, important, and in-depth reporting narrative that I have ever read. This book is about hardworking Americans and their circumstances leading to homelessness, and the strangle-hold that our own systems have fostered to beat down hardworking American families. These boots on the necks of people like Brit and Maurice are boots being put there due to economic, political, and structural racism. These systems are making our most vulnerable communities into slaves. These people are being exploited by a very ugly and pernicious capitalist market.

Eye opening, (and I’ll say it again:) *important*, and wildly immersive. The impact of reading this book has made me a different person. Michelle, DJ, Pink, Brit - real people, real stories, real fortitude and ambition- their dreams of access to simple “stable shelter” are beyond their grasp, directly due to circumstances that are out of their control. These are systemic structures that can be torn own and addressed if the American People STOP TURNING AWAY AND TELLING THEMSELVES THAT IT IS TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM TO SOLVE. NO SINGLE INDIVIDUAL CAN SOLVE IT; people need to look at it head on and resolve to change the system.

As the author clearly reveals, WE NEED TO DO BETTER- THERE ARE MILLIONS SUFFERING IN SILENCE. These systems are pulling the bootstraps out of peoples’ boots AND STEALING THEIR BOOTS, so that they have no way of unburying themselves out of debt and scarlet Eviction letters. We need to move out on this situation that is HAPPENING IN EVERY GENTRIFIED CITY. A starting point for you is to simply, please, read this book. 🙏

Powerful and Informative!

I appreciated the invaluable information the author integrated into this powerful account of America’s current issue of homelessness. I appreciated him honoring those experiencing housing instability by shining light on their challenges and efforts to stabilize themselves and their families.

Not varied enough

Too much focus on predominantly black or brown unhoused . Every demographic has this type of problem and in every city. Blaming home owners for the price of housing is just finding a place to put blame . If I own my home I have the sole right to raise rent , sell or whatever I chose for my property