Episode 2479: Brian Goldstone on the 4 million invisible homeless workers in America today

Amidst all the chaos and hysteria of Trump 2.0, some things in America never change. As the Atlanta based journalist Brian Goldstone notes in There Is No Place For Us, America’s “invisible” working homeless population have been mostly ignored by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Goldstone reveals how approximately 4 million Americans who work full-time jobs cannot today afford housing, with many living in extended-stay hotels, cars, or doubled-up with others. He highlights that 93% of homeless families in Atlanta are Black, and argues that these working homeless are victims of both failed economic policies and a lack of tenant protections. Goldstone criticizes both political parties for failing to address this crisis and calls for treating housing as a fundamental right rather than a commodity.

Five Key Takeaways from this Goldstone Interview

* Working Homelessness Crisis: Approximately 4 million Americans experience homelessness despite holding jobs, forming an "invisible" crisis where families live in extended-stay hotels, cars, or doubled-up with others.

* Racial Disparity: In Atlanta, 93% of homeless families are Black, revealing significant racial disparities in housing insecurity, despite the city's reputation as a "Black Mecca."

* Exploitative Housing Systems: Extended-stay hotels function as expensive, unregulated homeless shelters where families pay significantly more ($17,000 for eight months in one case) than they would for apartments they can't access due to credit barriers.

* Bipartisan Failure: Both Republican and Democratic administrations have failed to address the root causes of housing insecurity, with Goldstone describing it as a "bipartisan abandonment of working poor people."

* Housing as Commodity: The fundamental problem is treating housing as an investment vehicle or commodity rather than a basic human necessity, allowing it to be "auctioned off to the highest bidder."

Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Brian Goldstone is a journalist whose longform reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic, The California Sunday Magazine, and Jacobin, among other publications. He has a PhD in anthropology from Duke University and was a Mellon Research Fellow at Columbia University. In 2021, he was a National Fellow at New America. He lives in Atlanta with his family.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown child

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe