The new book, “There Is No Place For Us” features the stories of five Atlanta families struggling to find and keep safe, stable housing. These families represent the country’s “hidden homeless,” who sleep in cars or extended-stay motels but aren’t tracked by government homelessness counts.
Atlanta-based journalist Brian Goldstone, who authored the book, says the working homeless is a growing phenomenon that upends the assumptions people have when they think about hard work and the unhoused.
On Tuesday’s edition of “Closer Look,” Goldstone discussed the families he featured in the book, gentrification, the parallels between Atlanta’s thriving economy and its growing working unhoused population, and possible solutions.
“People like the families I follow in this book make up about 80%-90% of the nation’s total population, and yet not only are they not defined by the government but they are actively excluded from the federal homeless census, and they are ignored by policymakers,” Goldstone said.
“And I would argue, they have been written out of the story that we as a country tell about homelessness in America.”
