‘It feels like money’s just flying out the window’: financial security, stress and health in gentrifying neighborhoods

Abstract

The health consequences of gentrification are little-understood, and researchers have called for qualitative studies to uncover potential causal pathways between gentrification and health. Resident Researchers in a Participatory Action Research study of community health in nine gentrifying neighborhoods across the Boston area hypothesized that financial insecurity is one pathway through which gentrification might harm health. We analyze qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 40 financially vulnerable respondents to understand how the experience of living in a gentrifying neighborhood produces feelings of financial insecurity, and how such feelings may be harmful to health. Results indicate that experiencing gentrification exacerbates respondents’ sense of exposure to financial risk, while simultaneously reducing the perceived efficacy of available buffers against financial risks. The threats to an individual’s financial security introduced by gentrification-related changes in the neighborhood environment are stressful because they are appraised as taxing and exceeding the coping resources available to individuals. This gentrification-related financial insecurity is a meso-level phenomenon, produced by interactions between respondents and the contexts in which they live, with uncertain and uneven outcomes. Based on our findings, we argue that feelings of financial insecurity are one pathway through which the experience of living in a gentrifying neighborhood shapes health.