“The only thing worse than being homeless in America is not being considered homeless in America,” says Brian Goldstone, a journalist and ethnographer. America’s homelessness crisis extends far beyond what we see on the streets, and Goldstone wants us to pay attention to those who are hidden from public view.

In his new book, There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, Goldstone examines the lives of families caught in extended-stay motels, sleeping in cars, or shuffling between precarious arrangements — situations that often leave them uncounted in official homeless statistics despite housing instability. His reporting challenges the longstanding American narrative connecting homelessness with unemployment or an unwillingness to work.

I spoke with Goldstone about the distinction between “falling” and “being pushed” into homelessness, the stigma attached to the homeless label, and his perspective on what meaningful solutions might require. Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

You note that many people with unstable housing situations resist identifying as “homeless.” How does this reluctance to adopt the label affect both individuals’ experiences and our collective understanding of the housing crisis?

There is absolutely a stigma attached to the term “homeless” and there’s also a way in which HUD’s prevailing definition of homelessness — where only those who are sleeping on the streets or in homeless shelters count — has filtered into the public narrative and the public imagination. The people I’m writing about in my book belong to that public — they themselves often don’t recognize themselves as homeless when they’re doubling up with friends or sleeping in motels. They’re often surprised to learn, for example, that their kids’ schools, and the Department of Education, do consider them homeless if they’re in those situations. These official metrics and official ways of conceptualizing the problem absolutely impact the people experiencing it on a psychological level.

One person in my book, Celeste, her house burns down and when she finds she can basically secure no other apartment because an eviction has been filed against her, she and her son wind up at this extended stay hotel. At some point a........

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