“There Is No Place For Us”: One Woman’s Fight With a Housing System That Leaves the Working Poor Behind

Excerpt from There Is No Place For Us by Brian Goldstone

Journalist Brian Goldstone spent roughly six years investigating why many people who work full-time, low-wage jobs end up without stable housing. His new book, There Is No Place For Us (Crown), follows the lives of the working poor. The passage below recounts, under a pseudonym, how one mother — Celeste — encounters a maze of rules and assessments while trying to secure housing in Atlanta.

Celeste parked down the street from Gateway at 6:00 a.m. and found a long line already snaking along the sidewalk. She had been told that assessments were handled on a first-come, first-served basis, so people often began lining up in the middle of the night. The doors would not open for two hours, but she joined the queue anyway, stepping carefully around handcarts, baby strollers and small groups of people wrapped in blankets with their belongings stacked on the concrete.

She had eaten a lukewarm Cup Noodles for breakfast and felt faint and a little afraid. A visibly ill man nearby was cursing and harassing others; she almost left but tightened her grip on a manila folder of documents and stayed. Six weeks earlier, when her cancer treatment began, any hope of finding stable housing on her own evaporated. Asking for help now felt necessary; avoiding an indefinite motel stay mattered more than pride.

On a recent work break she had taken the Homeless Resource List that a social worker at her child’s school had given her. Some numbers were disconnected and many asked callers to leave voicemails, but a few organizations answered. Each one told her the same thing: to get the sort of help she wanted — a landlord willing to rent despite an eviction and perhaps money for a security deposit — she would first need an in-person assessment through Gateway’s “coordinated entry” system.

When she told Christina, a neighbor and the mother of six, Christina scoffed; her own visit to Gateway had brought no help. Celeste believed she could navigate the system. She was not going to be undone by paperwork.

By 9:30 a.m. she entered Gateway. The lobby was clean but austere: an airport-style metal detector led to an intake counter, a security station and rows of chairs where people dozed, stared into space, or soothed crying children. A Mercy Care clinic occupied one corner; a corridor led to public showers and a clothing bank. In another corner, a glass-enclosed room served as a warming center for mothers and children on the coldest nights — a space with no furnishings and no privacy. Since 2013, Gateway’s overnight shelter had been designated for men; women with children could only use that glass room when temperatures dropped below freezing.

After checking in, Celeste waited another hour and a half. A petite caseworker led her into a bare, windowless office. Celeste placed hotel receipts, a police report from the arson, and paystubs on the desk and began to tell the story she had practiced: how she and her children had lost stable housing. She spoke in what she called her “talking to white people voice,” measured and professional. The caseworker interrupted: she needed to ask a prescribed series of questions first.

With a scripted preface — answers should be one-word when possible; questions could be skipped — the intake began. How many months had it been since stable housing? Any behavioral-health diagnosis? HIV or AIDS? Since becoming homeless, had she been arrested, attempted self-harm, or been assaulted? How often did she drink or use drugs? Had she ever exchanged sex for money or shared needles?

“The purpose of the assessment,” the caseworker explained, “is to identify who most urgently needs help.”

Celeste was baffled by many of the queries. She mentioned her cancer diagnosis and insisted she was not lazy, that she had worked nonstop since her teens. The caseworker typed. When asked where she was living, Celeste explained the extended-stay motel.

The assessment lasted only minutes. Based on her answers, the caseworker said, Celeste’s “vulnerability score” was very low — too low to qualify for housing assistance. That score came from the Vulnerability Index — Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT), created by OrgCode Consulting in 2013 and widely adopted after federal guidance tied homeless-services funding to standardized intake systems. The VI-SPDAT was designed to identify those at greatest risk of death, incarceration, or hospitalization and to prioritize scarce resources accordingly. Across the country, it has become a primary instrument for deciding who receives help.

“But what about the cancer?” Celeste asked. The caseworker acknowledged that illness increased her vulnerability, but the central obstacle was HUD’s definition of “literal homelessness.” To get housing aid through the coordinated-entry system, she explained, a household usually had to be in a shelter or literally living on the street; motel stays and doubled-up arrangements often did not qualify.

This gap is common. Many support systems exclude families who live in motels or who are doubled up with other households because they do not meet the narrow federal definition. Advocates argue these families are just as vulnerable — that motels and temporary arrangements damage children’s education, health, and long-term prospects. The U.S. Department of Education defines homeless students to include anyone lacking “a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,” explicitly covering those in hotels, motels, and doubled-up situations. In 2019 the Department of Education counted 35,538 homeless children and youth enrolled in Georgia public schools, a 34 percent increase over a decade. Georgia’s HUD-administered total for people experiencing homelessness that year was 10,433 — a number politicians sometimes cited to claim homelessness was falling. That smaller HUD figure also influences funding allocations. Parents who appear homeless at their child’s school can be deemed ineligible for housing aid at places like Gateway.

“So let me get this straight,” Celeste said. “If I want your help getting a home for me and my kids, I need to be considered — what did you call it — literally homeless?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And to be considered literally homeless, we need to be in a shelter?”

“That’s right. Or somewhere not meant for human habitation.”

“All right then. How do we get into a shelter?”

The caseworker hesitated. “You said your son recently turned fifteen?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, but most family shelters don’t accept boys over the age of thirteen; older boys are typically placed in men’s shelters.”

“No way,” Celeste said. “Absolutely not. I’m not going to let my family be separated.”

“I wish I had more to offer,” the woman said. “I’m sorry.”

When Celeste left Gateway the line outside was as long as it had been that morning.

Context and where to learn more

This excerpt illustrates how administrative rules, narrow definitions, and standardized intake tools like the VI-SPDAT can leave working families without housing options. For the full account, read There Is No Place For Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Crown). Goldstone has discussed the book on TV, including an interview on CBS Sunday Morning (Nov. 16).

Buy the book: Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio from major retailers and independent bookstores (e.g., Bookshop.org). For more information, visit briangoldstone.net (official site).