There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America - Brian Goldstone

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is encouraged. This event takes place at the Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30303. Doors open at 6pm. Event begins promptly at 6:30pm.

Charis and the Auburn Avenue Research Library welcome Brian Goldstone in conversation with Josie Duffy Rice for a celebration of .

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.

About the author

Brian Goldstone is a journalist and author of , a finalist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and named one of the 10 Best Books of 2025 by The New York Times and The Atlantic. His longform reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic, and The California Sunday Magazine, among other publications. He received his PhD in cultural anthropology from Duke University and was a Mellon Research Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Columbia University. In 2021, he was a National Fellow at New America. He lives in Atlanta with his family.

About the conversation partner

Josie Duffy Rice is a journalist, writer, law school graduate, and podcast host whose work is primarily focused on prosecutors, prisons, and other criminal justice issues. She is the host of the podcast UnReformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, released in January 2023, which she also co-wrote. In addition, she co-hosts What a Day, Crooked Media’s daily news podcast, two days a week. She is a the creator and co-host of the podcast Justice in America. Until May 2021, she was President of The Appeal, a news publication that publishes original journalism about the criminal justice system.

About the Venue / Accessibility

• Masks are encouraged but not required.
• The entire building is wheelchair accessible with ramps, including the front and back entrances. Both entrances have powered doors. There are wheelchair accessible bathroom stalls.
• AARL has a free parking lot accessible via Courtland street. There are three dedicated wheelchair accessible parking spots. Please park and enter the library to get a guest pass and place it on your dashboard before getting settled in the auditorium.

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Charis Circle's mission is to foster sustainable feminist communities, work for social justice, and encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. Donate via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate.

Please contact us at [email protected] or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event.

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