Gender, Power, and Alternative Living Arrangements in the Inner-City Crack Culture
             Lisa Maher, Eloise Dunlap, and Bruce D. Johnson and Ashley Hamid did this study. The purpose of this study was to show the alternative arrangements that women in crack-culture environments make to survive along with their personal security.
             Two ethnographic studies were done in New York City over a period from 1988-1992. They sampled many women from low-income neighborhoods, different ages, race and ethnic backgrounds and exhibited different diversity in their drug careers. During the two studies conducted, a central theme emerged. The majority of these women did not have conventional place or home to eat, sleep pay rent etc... Many of the data was collected through diaries, transcribed tape recordings interviews.
             The first breakdown in the section was called Starting Out: A Little Help from Your Friends. These short stories on how they lived described how they got in contact with other people to help sell drugs from either their apartment or how they made arrangements to live with other women and their partners and score and sell drugs. Many of these arrangements did not last long and many of the women were also taken advantage of by some of the men they lived with. These arrangements were short lived and many just wound back on the streets looking for another place to stay. The second section was called Engaging the System: Welfare Hotels and Shelter Accomodations. This discusses women who live in Single Room Occupancy (SRO) or welfare hotels. These rooms were conducive to drug use. They were cheap places to live where they had easy access to drugs and dealers. These shelters were very dangerous and left many women feeling scared and vulnerable.
             The most common alternative living arrangements was living with older males. Many of these men had few economic resources, had low paying jobs or social security. They were able to provide these ...