Brian Goldstone

Brian Goldstone is a journalist and author of There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, a finalist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and named one of the “10 Best Books of 2025” by The New York Times and The Atlantic.

His longform reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic, and The California Sunday Magazine, among other publications.

He received his PhD in cultural anthropology from Duke University and was a Mellon Research Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Columbia University.

Selected Work

• The New American Homeless: The genesis for Goldstone’s book, this is the story of a working family’s futile struggle to remain housed in Atlanta—and how the city’s “revitalization,” as in many other urban centers, is coming at the expense of its low-income residents.
• 3 kids. 2 paychecks. No home.: A portrait of homelessness in Salinas, a fertile corner of California that feeds much of the country.
• A Prayer’s Chance: A story about schizophrenia, stigma, and the perilous state of mental health care in West Africa.
• The Pain Refugees: An investigation into the collateral damage of the nation’s war on opioids: chronic pain sufferers who are being cut off from their medication.