thank you so much, Amos 🙏🏼
Author of There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America • essays and reporting in The New York Times, Harper's, The New Republic, Jacobin & elsewhere https://bit.ly/thereisnoplaceforus
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thank you so much, Amos 🙏🏼
I'll use Ian's RT here to once again praise @brian-goldstone.bsky.social's There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America. One of the most important books in many years.
Thanks so much for reading and for your generous words. It really means a lot. 🙏🏼❤️
Pure coincidence that I'm finishing up this enraging & tender book right as school starts. So glad it surfaced on my TBR pile when it did. Many families in my district are in the Kafkaesque, no-win scenarios Goldstone describes. I'm glad to have that sobering reality at the forefront of my mind.
A great companion book to Goldstone's "There is No Place for Us" is "Nickled and Dimed" by the late, lamented Barbara Ehrenreich. #Homelessness
This is such an important point. As I argue in the NYT essay linked above, the rise of the "working homeless" is not just about low wages, but about the changing nature of work itself: volatile schedules, eroded job security, and a lack of benefits that put stable housing increasingly out of reach.
Wrote about @brian-goldstone.bsky.social’s exceptional book on working homelessness. Both deeply enraging but also morally clarifying, I hope I did it justice.
A nation built for 246 years on enslaved labor will never value the wellbeing of its workers.
❤️🙏🏼
Thank you so much, that means a lot
No words for how much this means to me. Thank you, truly.
Thanks for sharing this, I hadn't seen it
sources (in the order they appear in thread): nlihc.org/oor/about www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/rese... www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/defaul... papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
When I wrote above that in no city, metro area, or state is a 2-bedroom affordable on minimum wage, that's based on local minimum wages, often higher than federal—which hasn't been raised in 16 YEARS. The average U.S. minimum-wage worker must work *116 hours a week* to afford a 2-bedroom apartment.
oh, thanks for sharing!
A few more stats: Nearly a third of the country's workforce—roughly 52 million people—earns under $15/hr. 12.1 million low-income tenants are now "severely cost burdened," spending at least half their income on rent. About 50% of people in homeless shelters—and 40% of those unsheltered—have jobs.
~whispers~ and a reminder that I wrote a book about this very thing. "When work no longer provides stability, when wages are too low and rents are too high, when millions are one medical bill, one missed paycheck, one rent hike away from losing their homes—who, exactly, is secure?"
A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
Residents are finding all sorts of ways to fight ICE: They're recording and reporting. They're wheatpasting and sharing know-your-rights materials. And they're stepping up to care for each other, from delivering groceries to walking kids to school. 51st.news/dc-residents...
“We want the practice of hope to produce otherwise possibility, a break from the known and knowable world (or worlds).” - @ashoncrawley.bsky.social
I appreciated this take and the moral stance it makes for immigrants. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/o...
“It’s an engineered abandonment of not thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but millions of families,” @brian-goldstone.bsky.social told us about homelessness.
It’s fitting this episode where I speak to Brian Goldstone about his book “There Is No Place for Us” lands on Labor Day weekend. As he notes, “All of the people in this book, they are working and working and working some more. But their wages … are not enough to afford this basic human necessity.”
That really means a lot, thank you 🙏🏼
It was such a gift speaking with you, Laura. Thank you for the thoughtful questions and for bringing such care and insight to this conversation.
The average American simply has no idea how quickly the infrastructure that keeps us safe and healthy is collapsing. These systems run in the background thanks to government employees who quietly do critical work. Those employees are being purged and systems are being destroyed.
I thought of this story while reading about Florida wasting $218 million on empty cages:
For perspective: $218 million is enough to cover a year's rent for roughly 11,200 Florida households. But the state's leaders—like the Trump administration—have prioritized cages over homes.
“How extremely profitable all of this precarity has become.” Author Brian Goldstone on working and homelessness in today’s America.
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Thank you, that really means a lot
It's really unbearable to witness this cruelty
No words
New: @juliannemcshane.bsky.social and I took a deep dive into how Trump (and RFK Jr) is undermining mental health research at @motherjones.com–which could lead to fewer breakthroughs in early intervention strategies. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
There's massive investment in sweeping homelessness out of sight while profiting off the very conditions that create it. "If we just criminalize homelessness and don't address its root causes, an entire world of insecurity under the surface will continue to spill into the open."
@flyingwithsara.bsky.social said to me, about my book: "Before we can fix the crisis, we have to FEEL the crisis." I talked to @theintercept.com about the organized abandonment of poor & working families — and why homelessness must be faced in its devastating reality, not softened into abstraction.
The pro-pediatric brain cancer administration.
How to portray an authoritarian assault on public health, independent expertise and the truth as a reasonable undertaking that “some critics” find troubling.
1. An 18-year-old boy was kidnapped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside LA just days before he was to begin his senior year in high school. He was walking his dog when they came for him. www.latimes.com/california/s...
For great examples of people who need rent freeze despite working harder than anyone on Wall Street, read @brian-goldstone.bsky.social book Working & Homeless in America
Israeli forces killed dozens in Gaza on Tuesday as tanks and warplanes levelled entire blocks in Gaza City.
Heartbreaking, for what is happening to people. Maddening because the rest of us allow/enable it to happen. #Affordablehousing #UBI H/T @brian-goldstone.bsky.social @scottsantens.com www.briangoldstone.net
Can't wait to be in conversation with Carla Wells and Brigette Jones this Saturday at 1pm. Atlanta friends, I'd love to see you there! Free and open to all — register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/arabia-all...
This is a hell of a letter. “The intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines…will bring us to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive and many if not all will suffer….Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated…”
Gaza City has ~1.2 million residents. That's almost the same population as Dallas. Please stop and consider what it would take to evacuate THE ENTIRE CITY OF DALLAS, TEXAS—then imagine doing it after two years of war, while people are starving.
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Housing is healthcare. Homelessness is a public health emergency. Until it's treated that way, we'll keep condemning millions of people to needless, preventable suffering.
Grateful for the chance to talk about my book and an aspect of the housing crisis too often overlooked: the acute physical and mental toll of homelessness, the "toxic stress" it creates, and the lasting harm it inflicts on adults and children alike.
Every time I see something like this, I am filled anew with rage at all the things we do in the name of safety for kids that don't actually make them safer, while ignoring all the obvious ways we could easily make them safer
SCOOP: A Powerful A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers. Big liberal content creators are being paid up to $8,000 per month to push party messaging. www.wired.com/story/dark-m...
Millions of Americans work full time—sometimes juggling multiple jobs—and still can’t secure stable housing. @brian-goldstone.bsky.social pulls back the curtain on this crisis in his new book, There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America. podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/938-book-clu...
it's SO good
it can't be emphasized enough: read @greenwell.bsky.social's BAD COMPANY
Private equity is a plague on society, Exhibit 12,422: When TPG took over hospitals in Africa—backed by Bono, the World Bank & Gates Foundation—doctors admitted patients who didn't need it, unnecessary procedures were pushed, whistleblowers were silenced, and care was corrupted by revenue targets.
“At this point it's become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza. I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more.” - Valerie Zink
This Thursday I will be at Hub City Books in Spartanburg, SC. Please come see me! www.hubcity.org/events/603/j...
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If you're lucky, you have no idea just how insanely expensive it is to be poor.
Yes, absolutely — even in places with (relatively) strong tenant protections, the mix of insecure/volatile work, low wages, high rents, and limited housing supply can be toxic...
It's wild how many messages I've received from people in the UK who have suffered through the same realities documented in my book. The dramatic rise of the "working homeless" — driven by soaring rents, precarious jobs, and weak tenant protections — isn't just an American phenomenon.
thank you!
If you want a deep dive on the subject, I learned so much from this book
Thank you so much, that really means a lot.
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Journalists need to retire “unprecedented.” What Trump’s doing isn’t—it’s a fascist consolidation of power, by the books. & everyone else needs to give up “wannabe,” as in dictator. Face facts: he is. Let’s contend with that.
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thank you!!
Made the Bookshop.org bestseller list (!!) thanks to you all. Still a few hours left in the $1.99 ebook sale.
thank you!
Honestly, I think all US public policy & sociology majors should have to read this. And all politicians. But also, it's such an important read that you should go pick it up too. And why not, for $1.99?
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Oh wow! (And thank you so much!)
This is a ridiculous deal for an extremely important book... usually these deals are only on Amazon so pick it up support an author and a local bookstore at Bookshop.org.
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thank you so much!
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Amazing, thank you!
This is a truly excellent book.
thank you so much, Andrea — your support has meant a lot 🙏🏼
Thank you so much!
🙏🏼❤️
Available everywhere you read ebooks (Kindle, B&N, Apple Books, etc) for $1.99. But if you'd like to support indie bookstores (please do!), you can grab it via Bookshop:
🚨 If you were thinking of picking it up, today's the final day of the $1.99 ebook sale for THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US
Looking forward to reading your book!
If you want a starting point, here's the article I wrote in 2018 (linked in original post), which draws on Israeli migration researchers, UN reports, Amnesty, and survivor testimony. Many scholars & rights groups have expanded and corroborated these findings—easy to find with a quick google search.
Of course both need to be seen in their wider contexts. But Israel devised this specific tactic: deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda/Uganda under opaque agreements. Migration scholars and rights groups have since pointed out that this model has become a template for other countries, including the US.
To be clear: I never said Israel "pioneered" deportations in general. My reporting showed it pioneered this *specific model* — covertly deporting Eritreans and Sudanese to Rwanda/Uganda under secretive deals, countries they had no connection to. It's *this* model the US is now emulating.
I'll never forget sitting with Saimon Fisaha, an Eritrean refugee, as he recounted what followed his deportation from Israel to Uganda—a country he'd never set foot in and had no ties to. He endured beatings, captivity, and near-death before reaching Europe. 3 years later, the trauma was still raw.
Israel pioneered this tactic a decade ago: deporting 4,000 asylum seekers to Uganda and Rwanda, where they faced horrific conditions and were often funneled into deadly trafficking networks. I investigated this shadow deportation system for @newrepublic.com in 2018: newrepublic.com/article/1488...
Mariam Dagga, an AP freelancer and mother, was among the journalists killed in Israel's "double-tap" strikes on the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza. In a "double-tap" strike, Israel bombs a facility once and then strikes again... after rescuers and journalists have raced in.
The typical college student is actually exactly who I think it is. Mainly because my understanding of higher ed was shaped first and most by watching my mom study for community college classes as a kid rather than The New York Times' coverage of elite college admissions and drama.
So grateful to hear that. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Finished There Is No Place For Us by @brian-goldstone.bsky.social and I’m left furious & mobilized. It is a beautiful telling of the stories of a number of people with insecure housing. #booksky
“Housing, in this view, is too precious and important to be left to the whims of the market: it is a cornerstone of both human dignity and societal well-being.”
@brian-goldstone.bsky.social reviews @benchansfield.bsky.social's book. When the Bronx Burned, Tenants Died and Landlords Got Rich “Born in Flames,” by the historian Bench Ansfield, recounts how the 1970s wave of urban arson devastated poor communities while enriching building owners. Gift link!
Thank you so much for reading and for your generous words. It really means a lot 🙏🏼
Ebook readers: a friend just pointed out that THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US is currently only $1.99 (93% off!). Same price on Kindle, B&N, etc. Here's the Bookshop link: bookshop.org/p/books/ther...
Famine confirmed for first time in Gaza FAO, UNICEF, WFP & WHO reiterate call for immediate ceasefire & unhindered humanitarian access to curb deaths from hunger & malnutrition.
The number of people who told me last year that ‘it can’t get any worse for Gaza.’ But it always could get worse, things can always get worse- and they have. We are now witnessing an official, full-blown, US-approved famine in Gaza. Shameful.
Trump proposes to rescind AIDS funds. Congress rejects the proposal. So Trump and his henchman Russ Vought just refuse to spend the money and try to hide that decision from Congress and the public. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/h...