Disabled, Poor, and Poorly Served: Access to and Use of Financial Services by People with Serious Mental Illness

Harper, Annie; Baker, M. Douglas; Edwards, Dawn; Herring, Yolanda; Staeheli, Martha

doi:10.1086/697904

Cited by 25 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…In spite of this evidence, there has been little experimentation with information disclosure-only strategies. Advocacy organisations in the US and the UK have recommended banks should offer read-only access to Internet banking for a third party [20,33]. Work on accommodating shared identities in digital accounts suggests some of the ways such read-only access could be provided.…”

Section: From Designing For Protection To Designing For Collaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

"Pick Someone Who Can Kick Your Ass" - Moneywork in Financial Third Party Access

Pena

Kursar²,

Clarke

et al. 2021

Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.

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This paper explores some of the new possibilities for financial third party access that are enabled by "open banking". The term open banking is used to designate the availability of banks' customer data through application programming interfaces (APIs). Financial third party access refers to the mechanisms that facilitate the engagement of others in the management of our personal finances. Engaging trusted others in personal finances may be especially valuable for individuals experiencing financial hardship or life circumstances that place their financial stability at risk. We deployed a new third party access tool enabled by the UK Open Banking APIs for 90 days with 14 people who self-identified as living with a mental health condition. The tool, which was developed by a financial technology startup founded by the second author, allowed participants to select a trusted "ally" who was notified when certain transactions took place in participants' bank accounts. During the deployment, the 14 participants and 8 of their "allies" took part in a diary study and pre- and post-deployment interviews. The experiences of our participants reveal the inadequacy and shortcomings of existing formal third party access mechanisms, and the moneywork involved in financial third party access. We argue that focusing on this moneywork can help us design flexible, proportionate and practice-sensitive services for financial third party access that move beyond discourses of protection and control in order to enable meaningful financial collaboration.

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Section: From Designing For Protection To Designing For Collaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

"Pick Someone Who Can Kick Your Ass" - Moneywork in Financial Third Party Access

Pena

Kursar²,

Clarke

et al. 2021

Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.

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show abstract

“…The relationship between money and mental health has been described as "bidirectional" [25] and "nonlinear" [28], with money troubles and poor mental health feeding into each other and trapping individuals in a "vicious cycle" [69] that becomes difficult to escape [28]. Improving our understanding of how the cycle of mental illness and financial hardship unravels can help develop more effective interventions to support those struggling with their mental health [25,35,44].…”

Section: Money and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…problem-solving behaviours and adaptations that allowed participants to get by [23]. These include i) taking advantage of subsidies, community programmes and other available assistance for housing, utilities, food and leisure [13,36,81]; ii) relying on social networks [28,35,36,81]; iii) cost-efficient shopping [13,36,81]; iv) careful financial planning [35], which involved activities such as budgeting [13,36], prioritising [13], earmarking [35], spending self-discipline [36], and even doing without basic necessities when needed [81]; v) debt management, which included both avoiding credit [13] and borrowing when necessary [35,81]; vi) seeking additional income [28,35,36,81] by pursuing activities such as collecting cans, selling cigarettes, taking part in research studies [36,81] or finding part-time work [28]; vii) attempting to save money [13]; and viii) nominating a legal guardian to manage their finances on their behalf [81]. This body of research has also revealed the main challenges experienced by those with poor mental health when engaging with financial services: cost and lack of friction.…”

Section: Money and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Financial Technologies in the Cycle of Poor Mental Health and Financial Hardship: Towards Financial Citizenship

Pena

Kursar²,

Clarke

et al. 2021

Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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It is well documented that people living with mental health conditions are more likely to experience financial difficulties. When explaining this association, emphasis has often been placed on financial capability, i.e. the capacity of those living with poor mental health to manage their money. This paper challenges such capability-based explanations by reporting on a diary study and interviews with 14 people who self-identify as living with a mental health condition. We focused on their experiences of financial technology use, and explored the role technology played in their strategies to minimise the impact of mental health on their economic circumstances. Rather than lacking capability, participants' practices revealed shortcomings of existing financial technologies and how they sought to work around these. We conclude by providing a set of design directions for technologies that engage those living with poor mental health not as vulnerable targets for financial inclusion, but as full financial citizens.

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“…Lower income households in particular have had to borrow simply to meet basic needs (Alpert and Hockett 2018). Many are burdened by high-cost; predatory debt from Alternative Financial Services (AFS) providers such as pawnshops, rent-to-own stores, auto-title lenders and payday lenders (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 2015); and by non-loan debt such as medical debt, or utility, and tax arrears (Aspen Epic 2018; Dwyer 2018; Finnigan and Meagher 2019; Harper et al 2018). They also rely heavily on informal loans and transfers of goods and services between friends and family (Desmond 2012; Edin, Lein, and Christopher 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Once incarcerated, individuals with mental illness are less likely to be eligible for parole, more likely to finish their entire sentences, and more likely to be reincarcerated after release (Cloyes et al 2010; Lovell, Gagliardi, and Peterson 2002; Metraux 2008). Regardless of criminal justice involvement, people with mental illness are also more likely than others to live in deep poverty (Vick, Jones, and Mitra 2012) and are more likely to have unmanaged debt, particularly to costly AFS providers and to friends and family, and to have damaged credit (Anderson, Strand, and Collins 2017; Harper et al 2018). By focusing on this population, our study sheds light on the experiences of a particularly marginalized group.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Let Me Be Bill-free”: Consumer Debt in the Shadow of Incarceration

Harper

Bardelli

Barrenger

2020

Sociological Perspectives

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Low-income U.S. households are increasingly burdened by unaffordable debt, with profound long-term economic and health consequences. Households of color are disproportionately negatively affected. This article examines the nexus of this rising indebtedness and mass incarceration through the experiences of a particularly marginalized group, people with mental illness. Drawing on qualitative research with 31 individuals with mental illness and recent incarceration in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, we show how carceral institutions and predatory financial practices intersect to create complex entanglements for poor and vulnerable people. While a growing body of scholarship focuses on criminal justice fines and fees, we highlight other types of debt that add to the overall burden, describing how incarceration deepens people’s existing debts of poverty and adds new debts from in-prison costs and identity theft. After release, those debts complicate the search for housing, employment, and financial stability, leading to further debt, stressing social relationships and reproducing social and economic inequality. The experiences of people with mental illness illuminates structures of marginalization and disadvantage that affect many others involved with the criminal justice system.

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Disabled, Poor, and Poorly Served: Access to and Use of Financial Services by People with Serious Mental Illness

Cited by 25 publications

References 48 publications

"Pick Someone Who Can Kick Your Ass" - Moneywork in Financial Third Party Access

"Pick Someone Who Can Kick Your Ass" - Moneywork in Financial Third Party Access

Financial Technologies in the Cycle of Poor Mental Health and Financial Hardship: Towards Financial Citizenship

“Let Me Be Bill-free”: Consumer Debt in the Shadow of Incarceration

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