In college I wrote the final paper for my Women Gender and Sexuality Studies' minor degree on the carcerality of credit scores. My thesis was simple "credit scores serve a broader system of carceral logics and should be abolished." I talked about how housing inequality acts as a primary agent of subjugation in America. The lack of access to affordable housing, much less homeownership (the single-most powerful wealth building mechanism in America), are contributing to the continued segregation of communities of color, among a myriad of other injustices. Credit scores are predicated on factors that many marginalized folks experience significant challenges with, and, in my own words from that essay, "credit scores hinder access to housing, wealth, and opportunity in America, and they do so at higher rates for criminalized communities."
When I take my thoughts from college a step further and interrogate the ways poverty cannot be dismantled while profit is prioritized, it's easy to see the many state-sanctioned strategies to criminalize poverty rather than solve it. As someone who has worked in real estate in Los Angeles - where the glitz and glamour often overshadow the struggles of everyday life - I can truly say I've seen both sides of this issue.
In the few years since my essay (and for many years prior to it), skyrocketing rents and home prices have outpaced wage growth, leaving many Angelenos struggling to make ends meet. As a result, unhoused individuals are forced to navigate a hostile environment where survival strategies such as panhandling or sleeping in public spaces are criminalized, pushing them further into the margins of society. Plus, we know for-profit correctional facilities have a vested interest in perpetuating cycles of poverty and incarceration, further entrenching the systemic injustices faced by the most vulnerable members of society. While for-profit prisons were banned in CA in 2019, the companies that fund them still hold many contracts with the state to operate transitional housing and reporting centers for parolees. The relationships between Wall Street and correctional programs create an ecosystem where profits can easily be placed over the interests of the actual individuals in the criminal justice system.
At the nexus of this issue lies the intersection between economic disparities, systemic inequalities, and the privatization of the prison industrial complex. As we confront the housing crisis in Los Angeles, we are called to challenge the way over-policing exacerbates this issue in real time, and where the true incentives lie.
For most Angelenos, not just those facing homelessness, housing costs are a significant challenge. Qualifying for housing is contingent upon one's creditworthiness and income, however mass layoffs, wage stagnation, rising home prices, and increasing consumer debt is putting immense pressure on the average American's ability to maintain a stable income or build their credit. The Los Angeles economy is supported by many gig workers or freelancers who rely on contract work, royalties, or other non-traditional income sources to pay their bills each month. While most landlords or home lenders look for ways to decrease risk, they build increased precautions into their approval processes for housing in order to vet the reliability of a tenant or borrower. These restrictions impact all folks, especially those with inconsistent income. For unhoused folks, these limitations can be entirely prohibitive, and, for the justice impacted community, job prospects are often reduced to minimum-wage options, which we know do not pay living-wage income.
This inconsistency between rising costs and stagnant wages, while landlords demand more certainty in a time that calls for increased flexibility and humanity, combined with a nationwide housing shortage, has created a perfect storm intensified by the years of systemic inequality that has preceded us.
There are complex solutions to solve these issues, where there are challenges at many stages. But incentives are important. Incentivizing good is an important part of seeing good things happen. Under capitalism, most incentives are tied to financial gain. And when financial gain is so rooted in the exploitation of vulnerable communities (based on the structure we exist in currently), it is harder to see good trump everyone's need for financial gain. On the other end of the issue, because we do need to support those inhibited by systematic failures while we are fixing the problems at the root, we need more holistic solutions. Support for individuals experiencing poverty, homelessness, or the justice system cannot stop at housing. We need to support the solutions that put individuals in positions to maintain housing, secure living-wage employment, and end the cycle. We need less of our community to be in survival mode. That will lead to more advocates that truly understand these issues, and can bolster the efforts to solve them.
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