From displaced to deprived: how racial capitalism entrenches housing insecurity as a determinant of health

This study examines how, in contexts of inequitable governance, housing insecurity functions as a pathway for environmental and psychosocial exposures. Drawing on seventy-nine archival letters written between 1964 and 1965 by public housing applicants in New Orleans, the research integrates the social exposome and surplus population conceptual framings to trace how urban renewal practices, forced displacement, and bureaucratic neglect generated cumulative environmental and social stressors that not only intensified chronic conditions but also posed barriers to healthcare access and economic stability. This study argues that housing insecurity is a political and historically contingent determinant of health. The paper demonstrates how urban governance strategies produced and perpetuated embodied vulnerabilities by situating these historical narratives within a broader context of racial capitalism. In doing so, the research contributes to critical debates on urban renewal, environmental injustice, and the spatial production of health disparities.