There Is No Place for Us, Brian Goldstone. Crown (ISBN: 9780593237144) 2025.

Summary: The plight of the working homeless through the experience of five Atlanta families.

This was a heart-breaking and sobering book to read. It was heart-breaking to trace the lives of the five families Brian Goldstone follows over several years. Families where adults worked, sometimes more than one job only to have to double up with friends, live in extended stay units, or in dangerously substandard rental units. And because they weren’t on the streets or in shelters, they weren’t even considered homeless. And it was sobering to read, because one recognized the precarity so many are living under. One major care repair. One hospital bill or illness. A huge utility bill from a landlord re-selling power. Or low income housing sold to institutional buyers converting it into high rent lodgings.

Goldstone’s families live in Atlanta, seemingly a booming city. And part of the story is that it is partially true for some people. As a result, areas are gentrifying, and affordable housing is disappearing as are the incentives to operate affordable housing complexes. The trouble is that those at the lower end of the income scale, an scale that is rising with the rents, people can’t afford housing without spending substantially more than half their income each month, far above the recommended percentage. What’s sobering is that more and more people are under this stress. “There is no place for us” is becoming a literal reality. Throughout the book, individuals scour listings only to be turned down. And if a person has an eviction on their financial history, forget it.

One of the surprising things in this book is to learn how many had to resort to extended stay units. One thinks of these as places business travelers stay when they are in town for a period. At least around Atlanta, they were the alternative to the streets for many when they could not find conventional rental housing. School busses stopped at them to pick up children. And in most cases, they were more costly than rentals and not subject to landlord-tenant laws, which in Atlanta favor landlords.

A number of the families seek assistance through housing agencies and programs facing too many clients, and not enough housing. Often, until you were literally on the street, there was little they could do. One of the bright spots was LaQuana “LA Pink” Alexander, a one woman community organizer who was out on the streets with these people, and communicated care, and somehow found short-term help–food, hygiene supplies, clothing, a place to stay, a connection.

Perhaps you remember the plate-spinning acts that once were a regular feature on variety shows. That’s what I felt I was watching as I read this narrative. People were trying to earn more, sometimes in the gig economy. They were trying to pay for and keep a car running, feed a family, and often juggle bills, deciding which they must pay. And of course they needed to pay the rent on time or face the dreaded eviction notice. But what if you got cancer, as one individual did? What if your child care shut down during COVID? Sometimes people made bad choices when the pressure became too great. They took out payday loans. Or they drank too much. Yet these people are not wanting handouts. They want to pay their own way.

The book concludes with sensible proposals that help. Stronger tenant laws can ban various extortionist practices. The definition of the homeless can be expanded to include many of the people in this book, which if nothing else, would help us see the true extent of our national problem.

But the real challenge is to answer the question of what incentive exists to build and operate low cost housing when developers and landlords can do so much better? The only answer Goldstone sees is for government or non-profits to take this on, which may be a non-starter for many. But it seems to me that we will pay these costs one way or another. Why not try to do so in a way where people, cities, schools, and businesses flourish? Instead of “there is no place for us” isn’t it time to say “a safe place for all.” It seems that a nation aspiring to greatness ought do at least this.