Food Insecurity

The other major issue affecting more and more college and university students is that they do not have enough to eat. They do not have reliable, consistent access to food. This phenomenon is known as Food Insecurity. Institutions of higher education have opened food pantries, hold food drives, and even individual professors bring food to class.

People who are hungry have a harder time concentrating. People who have a harder time contrasting fall behind in their classes and either fail, drop out, or just disappear into the abyss. The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior reports that nearly 60% of college students are food insecure. That is a staggering figure! With approximately 13% of American households having a hard time securing
sufficient food, college students would then be five times more likely to experience food insecurity.

From California to the East Coast, some governments require all public colleges and universities to operate food pantries while other institutions operate food pantries because they know the need exists. I teach in an are which the neighborhood (designated as a super neighborhood by Houston) is a food desert. There is not one grocery store in the area. In order to get fresh fruit and vegetables at a reasonable price (reasonable meaning cheaper than what is for sale at corner mini markets) people have to drive or take buses outside of the neighborhood. Although there has not been a study of food insecurity at my campus, I would not be surprised if the percentage of students who go hungry are higher than the campuses in the suburbs. However, there seems to be no agreement on the numbers or percentages of food insecurity among college and university students. But it seems that West Coast schools might be taking the lead in addressing this issue.

To get a handle on the scope of the need here at my campus, we need to poll the students. But before that we need to get every professor on board.

Housing Insecurity

Several years ago, on the first day of the semester, a student beat me to my 8am class. She beat me the next time and the next time and the next time. I pride myself on getting to class early (30 minutes early) to set up my PowerPoint presentation so when students filter in they see the title of the lecture and I’m ready to begin at 8.

On our second meeting of the semester I noticed this early bird was wearing the same clothes. She had on the same clothes the next two times the class met. So, at the end of the second week I called her over and remarked how much she like that sweater because she’s worn it every day for the first two weeks of the semester. Then she confided in me what I expected: she was homeless.

There are two major problem affecting students, one is housing insecurity.

In every class, each semester, I become aware of at least one homeless student. I have no idea how many of my students are homeless. Nationally, about 36% of students are housing insecure while 9% are outright homeless.

How large, how widespread is this problem at HCC? Home insecurity has a direct correlation with student success. Without a stable shelter, anxiety, stress, and depression build. Those take over one’s ability to focus on college work, which leads to dropping out of college or just disappearing into the abyss.

We need to do something. The first thing to to get the word out that the college has the resources and the know how to offer assistance to those with home insecurity. The second thing I’d like to do is to figure out how many homeless students we have.

So, some of my classes are assigned to meet with homeless advocates to try to come up with a plan to best identify students who are home insecure.