The author introduces the book’s central thesis through Cokethia Goodman, a full-time home health aide in Atlanta who became unhoused with her children in 2018 after their landlord sold their rental home in a gentrifying neighborhood. Goodman’s story illustrates the paradox of “the working homeless” (xvii), a growing population whose experience contradicts the American belief that hard work guarantees stability.

This crisis is especially acute in the nation’s most prosperous cities. Skyrocketing rents, stagnant low-wage salaries, and insufficient tenant protections push countless working individuals into housing insecurity. Official statistics fail to capture the full scale, as the federal definition of “homelessness” in the US excludes those living in cars, hotels, or temporarily with relatives.

Focusing on Atlanta, the author describes the city’s transformation into an economic powerhouse, which the BeltLine, a 22-mile mixed-use trail, symbolizes. This boom comes at great cost to low-income residents: Aggressive development has replaced tens of thousands of affordable apartments with luxury units, displacing longtime residents (mostly Black citizens) to the city’s outer edges.

The author introduces five Black families whose struggles the book documents: Maurice and Natalia, priced out of Washington, DC; Kara, a hospital worker; Michelle, a student and single mother; Britt, whose family has deep roots in Atlanta; and Celeste, whose resourcefulness is tested by illness and a predatory housing system.