Never seen the movie, but gangs/criminals don't pay much in taxes so that gives them a big leg up for one thing. The criminal's 100 k income is worth a lot more than a professional's 100k. Plus gangs often times have the whole boarding house situation going on. Buy a decent sized pad, throw half the gang in there to help with bills.
Keep in mind that these real estate markets in the cities you're taking about are not your average markets being priced off local jobs, wages, supply, demand, etc. anymore. 2015 is a whole different world from Al Bundy America. They are totally distorted markets now. You've got land protections. Then you've got laundered foreign money from China/Russia, etc. floating about everywhere. Mexicans pooling money with multiple families to buy houses they couldn't normally afford. Hedge Funds like BlackRock buying everything up.....just because they can. Non functioning interest rate environmest. It's a fools game to be an average person looking for that first house in these places.