GENDER, POWER, AND ALTERNATIVE LIVING ARRANGEMENTS IN THE INNER-CITY CRACK CULTURE

Impoverished crack-abusing women are usually without a regular place t o live, sleep, relax bathe, eliminate, eat and store possessions-but m ost are not homeless persons on the streets because they find alternat ive living arrangements. This article draws from a rich descriptive re pository of field notes, field diaries, and transcribed tape-recorded interviews from two ethnographic studies in New York City, focused upo n crack users and sellers. The most common alternative living arrangem ent was for women to live in the household of an older male with a dep endable income for a period of time. Women typically provided the men with sex, drugs, cash (less often), domestic service, or companionship . Several women lived in freakhouses (locales where several women ente rtained sexual customers and shared crack or other drugs) bra tried to avoid crack houses or shooting galleries as residential locations. Th ese alternative living arrangements reflected the women's powerlessnes s and the high levels of sexual exploitation and degradation of women in the inner-city crack culture.