There Is No Place for Us by journalist Brian Goldstone is a closely reported, riveting chronicle of “working homeless” people in present day Atlanta, Georgia. Goldstone, who is an anthropologist by training deploys the field’s techniques of close observation and cooperation to profile five families who are unhoused for significant periods of time, even though the adults are working multiple low wage jobs. These portraits are rife with bureaucratic frustration, greedy corporations, incompetent management companies and lots of substandard housing. We learn among other surprising things that one must be certified as “literally homeless” to qualify for many forms of government assistance. Persons who live in hotels or motels are denied this designation. The author notes that instead of honestly assessing the factors that cause people to become unhoused – poverty wages, out-of-control rents, greed, racism and gentrification - both the “local and national response to homelessness was being hobbled by a kind of willful myopia.”

Goldstone describes a period when vulnerable residents of poorly maintained, exploitative extended stay properties were energized to organize a protest to demand better conditions and fairer treatment. Despite the forward momentum and sense of possibility engendered by collective action, the protest died due to logistical factors in addition to a more unyielding element: most of the group’s members were struggling to manage their most basic material needs.

One of the most shameful statistics Goldstone uncovers concerns the annual census of Atlanta’s homeless population. Volunteer census takers offer $5 McDonald’s gift cards to persons who take part in the survey. However, the volunteers encounter only persons who are “literally homeless,” and are instructed not to count those who are living in their vehicles or in extended stay hotels or motels. In addition to the government downplaying the severity of the problem of homelessness, Goldstone points to political efforts to control the narrative, such as presenting homelessness as a lifestyle choice, or the result of laziness, or the product of myriad other personal vices. He observes that the main strategy was linking homelessness with mental illness and addiction. Using individual pathology as the major frame to understand homelessness, diverts attention from structural factors like poverty or racism.

There Is No Place for Us, is a powerful and timely book. It is well written and clearly presented. It is also long overdue.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the eARC in exchange for this review.

Heartbreaking!! The book was educational and showcased how little it takes to push the working poor into homelessness. Frightening how living in a shelter vs the horrid hotels/motels that the cater to the unhoused can determine benefits. The book was a bit wordy in parts, but that was needed to inform the reader. The personal stories stuck with me and I commend the author for exposing how few options are available for those that needed help.

Predatory corporate apartment owners, gentrification, labyrinthian social “services,” unplanned pregnancy, the pandemic, medical emergencies; the list goes on and on. Any one of these can mean the difference between being housed and living on the street for low income, or no income, Americans. This book follows five families who for various reasons struggle to pay rent, even for the most appalling rooms and apartments and who despite their best efforts find themselves moving in and out of homelessness. It is harsh look at the government’s failure to effectively help this issue and is an important read.

While the personal stories documented in this book are very compelling and heart-wrenching, the technical details of the many and varied government assistance programs and requirements drag down the narrative flow.

A fascinating at times heart wrenching read a look at five families who work strive to survive and are always a step away from homelessness . Brian Goldstone writes so well the five families he reports on in Atlanta come alive I found myself caring for each of them.Investigative reporting at its best.#netgalley #columbia

A disturbing novel that takes a hard look at what is currently happening in so many of the growing cities in our country. There are many hard working families that are housing insecure. They are in a situation that was unimaginable to them just a few years ago. In a time of a strong economy and low unemployment housing is costing three quarters of what a person brings in. Many are living paycheck to paycheck and are one misstep away from catastrophe.
Brian Gladstone’s book follows what happens to a few people who have this happen to them and it is gut wrenching. These are all families with children, mostly single mothers trying to earn enough money to cover food, rent and daycare. Natalie and Maurice lose their apartment due to gentrification. The owner can get more by selling it so even though they are model tenants their lease is not renewed. Now they find everything else is beyond their means.
Britt is already sleeping on her grandmother’s floor as she goes place to place looking for someplace she can afford and pay for daycare. She gets one of the rare housing vouchers but no one will take it. Michelle is in school to become a social worker when this begins. With 4 children none of the shelters will take a family of 5. Celeste had a warehouse job when she was evicted. Dealing with cancer she has one more battle to face.
The government is not set up anymore to help out families like they once were. Children don’t get a solid meal in school. The families wait in lines and apply on line, if they have computers, but rarely get any type of assistance. Kara ends up doing DoorDash as she and her children live in her car. Many of the others stay in Extended Stay hotel rooms under subhuman conditions paying weekly. There are no tenants rights so there is mold, rodents, leaks and evictions with no notice and no ability to get their things.
How is it possible that they ever get back on their feet? Time and again the bleakness is overwhelming but still they endure. It is not that the crazy people who are homeless but homelessness is making people crazy. We need to address this. This book is a definite 5

Goldstone examines the plight of the working homeless, those working full-time, who still can’t afford to rent. He examines the dire results of gentrification, creating a scarcity in affordable housing, as well as the lack of government aid and the ineffective bureaucratic mess they must navigate to try to get some kind of relief. He follows 5 families and their plights and their degradation and feeling of total powerlessness, yet having hope that things will get better. He’s an excellent non-fiction writer. It was heart breaking, enlightening and riveting. The diminished federal funding for the working poor makes me question and feel outraged that we’re spending billions and billions of dollars on far reaching wars. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for giving me the opportunity to read this advanced copy.