About This Event
The US faces a national crisis of homelessness and housing affordability like few other times in our history. Increasing rents and housing shortages have had devastating effects on nearly every major metropolitan area in the US and many rural communities as well. This crisis has affected everyone including children, seniors, military veterans, people with disabilities, and people working full-time. In his new book, “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America,” journalist Brian Goldstone exposes how the decline of work and pay in the US has left many full-time workers homeless. People who clock in at hospitals, drive for delivery apps, and care for others cannot afford stable housing as increases in rent continue to outpace wage growth.Goldstone follows five families in Atlanta as they navigate the impossible demands of low wages, skyrocketing rents, and an inadequate social safety net. Through his reporting, Goldstone lived alongside families in extended-stay motels, witnessing the cycles of eviction and rejection, and capturing the resilience of those caught in a system designed to exclude them and in one that often doesn’t count them in official statistics. “There Is No Place for Us” not only brings these unseen lives into focus but also forces us to confront a pressing question: If hard work is no longer enough to keep a roof over one’s head, what does that say about the promise of economic opportunity in the US? Join Maureen Conway, the Executive Director of the Economic Opportunities Program and a Vice President of the Aspen Institute, for this important and timely book talk with Brian Goldstone on April 30th from 3:00- 4:00 Eastern.
Featured Speaker
Brian Goldstone
Journalist and AuthorBrian Goldstone is a journalist and author of There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America. Told through the lives of five families in Atlanta, the book traces the rise of America’s “working homeless,” exposing the forces—gentrification, racialized displacement, precarious low-wage labor—fueling a deepening crisis of housing insecurity. It was published by Crown on March 25, 2025.His longform reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Republic, The California Sunday Magazine, Guernica, and Jacobin, among other publications. He has written about psychiatric care in Ghana, life after incarceration, the plight of chronic pain sufferers during an opioid epidemic, Israel’s secretive campaign to deport African asylum seekers, and, most recently, homelessness and housing precarity. He is editor of African Futures: Essays on Crisis, Emergence, and Possibility. In 2019, he co-organized the symposium “Uncertain States: Narrative Journalism and Its Limits” at the Columbia School of Journalism.Brian received his PhD in anthropology from Duke University. In 2017-2018, he was a Luce/ACLS Fellow in Journalism, Religion & International Affairs; prior to this, he was a Mellon Research Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Columbia University. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from New America, Fulbright, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. In 2015-2016, as a Justice-in-Education Fellow at Columbia, he taught at Sing Sing prison.
Moderator
Maureen ConwayVice President, The Aspen Institute; Executive Director, Economic Opportunities Program
Maureen Conway serves as vice president at the Aspen Institute and as executive director of the Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program (EOP). EOP works to expand individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. View Maureen’s full bio.
Opportunity in America
, an event series hosted by the Economic Opportunities Program, considers the changing landscape of economic opportunity in the US and implications for individuals, families, and communities across the country. The series highlights the ways in which issues of race, gender, and place exacerbate our economic divides, and ideas and innovations with potential to address these challenges and broaden access to quality opportunity.
Learn More
The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. Follow us on social media and join our mailing list to stay up-to-date on publications, blog posts, events, and other announcements.
About This Event
The US faces a national crisis of homelessness and housing affordability like few other times in our history. Increasing rents and housing shortages have had devastating effects on nearly every major metropolitan area in the US and many rural communities as well. This crisis has affected everyone including children, seniors, military veterans, people with disabilities, and people working full-time. In his new book, “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America,” journalist Brian Goldstone exposes how the decline of work and pay in the US has left many full-time workers homeless. People who clock in at hospitals, drive for delivery apps, and care for others cannot afford stable housing as increases in rent continue to outpace wage growth.Goldstone follows five families in Atlanta as they navigate the impossible demands of low wages, skyrocketing rents, and an inadequate social safety net. Through his reporting, Goldstone lived alongside families in extended-stay motels, witnessing the cycles of eviction and rejection, and capturing the resilience of those caught in a system designed to exclude them and in one that often doesn’t count them in official statistics. “There Is No Place for Us” not only brings these unseen lives into focus but also forces us to confront a pressing question: If hard work is no longer enough to keep a roof over one’s head, what does that say about the promise of economic opportunity in the US? Join Maureen Conway, the Executive Director of the Economic Opportunities Program and a Vice President of the Aspen Institute, for this important and timely book talk with Brian Goldstone on April 30th from 3:00- 4:00 Eastern.
Featured Speaker
Brian Goldstone
Journalist and AuthorBrian Goldstone is a journalist and author of There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America. Told through the lives of five families in Atlanta, the book traces the rise of America’s “working homeless,” exposing the forces—gentrification, racialized displacement, precarious low-wage labor—fueling a deepening crisis of housing insecurity. It was published by Crown on March 25, 2025.His longform reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Republic, The California Sunday Magazine, Guernica, and Jacobin, among other publications. He has written about psychiatric care in Ghana, life after incarceration, the plight of chronic pain sufferers during an opioid epidemic, Israel’s secretive campaign to deport African asylum seekers, and, most recently, homelessness and housing precarity. He is editor of African Futures: Essays on Crisis, Emergence, and Possibility. In 2019, he co-organized the symposium “Uncertain States: Narrative Journalism and Its Limits” at the Columbia School of Journalism.Brian received his PhD in anthropology from Duke University. In 2017-2018, he was a Luce/ACLS Fellow in Journalism, Religion & International Affairs; prior to this, he was a Mellon Research Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Columbia University. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from New America, Fulbright, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. In 2015-2016, as a Justice-in-Education Fellow at Columbia, he taught at Sing Sing prison.
Moderator
Maureen ConwayVice President, The Aspen Institute; Executive Director, Economic Opportunities Program
Maureen Conway serves as vice president at the Aspen Institute and as executive director of the Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program (EOP). EOP works to expand individuals’ opportunities to connect to quality work, start businesses, and build economic stability that provides the freedom to pursue opportunity. View Maureen’s full bio.
Opportunity in America
, an event series hosted by the Economic Opportunities Program, considers the changing landscape of economic opportunity in the US and implications for individuals, families, and communities across the country. The series highlights the ways in which issues of race, gender, and place exacerbate our economic divides, and ideas and innovations with potential to address these challenges and broaden access to quality opportunity.
Learn More
The Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. Follow us on social media and join our mailing list to stay up-to-date on publications, blog posts, events, and other announcements.
