The Community Credit research project explores pathways for trusted collaboration between credit unions and the communities they serve. To understand the experiences of people historically underserved by the consumer financial services industry, we focused in particular on the lived experience of low-income residents in Southern California. As part of a larger, mixed-methods study, in 2022 we mapped the landscape of financial services providers and advertisements in low-income neighborhoods in Orange County. Through documenting the presence of alternative financial services (AFS) providers and fringe financial advertisements, alongside traditional financial services providers, we investigated the spatial relationship between these businesses, as well as the factors that create consumers’ sense of (dis)trust in them. This data set contains photographs taken as part of this mapping research.

All study materials and procedures were approved by the University of California, Irvine Office of Human Research Protections and the Institutional Review Board (protocol ID 20216839). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2137567. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Data was collected over the course of five trips throughout Orange County, California, between November 2021 and February 2022, yielding 420 photographs. Areas of focus were determined by utilizing the 2019 Family Financial Stability Index (FFSI; Parsons et al.), a multivariate metric developed for Orange County United Way to measure the financial stability of families with children under 18. Each trip, researchers navigated to financial services providers in neighborhoods of low family financial stability. In addition to photographing these providers, researchers drove block-by-block through the area and documented traditional and fringe financial advertisements found on telephone poles, billboards, bus shelters, and the like. Photographs were only taken in public spaces of material in plain view.

Photographs are organized in folders according to trip (labeled A through E). Each photo is labeled by the trip and a number (e.g. “TripX_AdMapping_X.jpeg”). The photo directory associated with each trip contains the photo file names, descriptions and notes, and type (billboard, storefront, phone pole ad, etc.). Trip A took place in southern Santa Ana and western Orange; trip B was in northern Santa Ana and southern Anaheim; trip C was in northern Anaheim, Placentia, and Fullerton; trip D was in western Anaheim and northern Garden Grove; and trip E was in western Anaheim, northern Garden Grove, and Westminster. A map of Orange County coded according to the FFSI is included in the supplemental information (where red and dark orange indicate a neighborhood with a low score). The map also identifies local credit unions, community research partners, alternative financial services providers, and a selection of photographs from the mapping research.