December Staff Recommendations

There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America

This book uncovers the disturbing reality faced by working-class families in rapidly growing cities, where tenants have little rights, wages remain low, and rent continues to rise at alarming rates. Author Brian Goldstone shares the stories of five families in Atlanta who, despite working, are experiencing homelessness and cannot afford the cost of living.

Darcy shares, “This book hooked me from the beginning, and it proved to be heart-breaking, frustrating, and incredibly informative.  Author Brian Goldstone follows five Atlanta based families over several years, chronicling their attempts to secure stable housing by doing all the right things, and yet they are continually let down by the very systems meant to assist them. Each family is headed by a full-time working parent.  They are forced to stay with friends, live in extended stay units, or in dangerously substandard rental units. And because they weren’t on the streets or in shelters, the “system” doesn’t recognize them as homeless, which decreases their risk and need. These families were impacted by predatory landlords, hospital bills and illness, useless vouchers.

As Atlanta gentrifies, affordable housing is rapidly disappearing, and so are the incentives to operate it. Families with the lowest incomes are increasingly priced out, often spending well over half of their monthly income just to remain housed. With few alternatives, many are pushed into extended-stay units as a last resort to avoid living on the streets. These units cost more than traditional rentals and offer none of the protections of landlord-tenant law, compounding instability in a housing market that already favors landlords.

This book is a sobering reminder that many families are just one event away from homelessness, and the families we serve at CASA are all too familiar with this reality.  This book was eye-opening and gave me a great deal to think over. “

The Preventionist, Episode 3: Better Safe Than Sorry

In this episode of the Preventionist Podcast, host Dyan Neary interviews parents, Amanda and Yaino, whose children were removed from their home following misdiagnosis of child abuse after their infant sustained unexplained injuries. Amanda recounts the emotion toll of the long days of separation and the profound impact the experience had on her and her children. 

Darcy shares, “Is ‘better safe than sorry’ the best we can do?  Should babies and children be separated from their families each and every time they have unexplainable injuries?  This investigative podcast focuses on cases in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, where parents described having their children ripped from their care due to the misdiagnosis of child abuse, with the same doctor’s name coming up over and over, as the one concluding that child abuse had occurred.  From the producers of the groundbreaking podcast, ‘Serial’ comes this three-part series that tracks this doctor’s career through three states, and looks into a subset of pediatrics: child abuse pediatrics.

The interviewing and story sharing of a mother currently trying to get her five children back, who were removed due to injuries sustained by her infant child, proves to be relevant and thought provoking, for those of us working in the child welfare system.  
I would urge all CASAs to take a listen. I found this podcast to be informative, shocking, and deeply moving.”