Solutions

Solutions to address basic needs insecurity abound, and campuses are taking steps to do so across the nation. However, business as usual is not enough—much more needs to be done to help the thousands of New Mexico students who are experiencing hunger, unsafe housing, and homelessness. 

To start, institutions need to think beyond the food pantry. Across the country, pantries are the number one response, but there is almost no published research linking their presence to student retention. While they can provide temporary relief, they may not be a consistent or reliable resource. Many do not have sustainable funding, accessible hours of operation, or reliable quantities of fresh and nutritious food. 

Food pantries could be turned into comprehensive basic needs resource centers, sometimes referred to as single points of contact (SPOC). In California, SPOCs have been mandated at every community college and exist in the Cal State and University of California systems.

Below we have compiled a list of ideas and resources by topic. Feel free to browse for more information on solutions.

Establishing Basic Needs Centers

• Examples of basic needs centers: Riverside City College and California State Long Beach
• Read about the Basic Needs Services Implementation Rubric here

Food Pantries                                                                            

• Have an Amazon Wishlist for food pantries—see an East Central College example
• Provide culturally diverse food at pantries—see the Culturally Responsive Food Initiative launched by the Food Bank of the Rockies
• Maintain several food pantries on campus and/or have free food cupboards in student service offices and academic departments
• Rename the food pantry to reduce stigma
• Have campus gardens which donate fresh produce to the pantry—this has been implemented at many Cal State schools
• Create mobile food pantries—see a CU Boulder example

Information and Awareness

• Student-made resource packets made for other students—see “How to Survive on Campus” from CUNY
• Show students the resources for basic needs on campus during freshmen orientation tours
• Use social media to advertise resources
• Educate students on SNAP and Medicaid applications, benefits, eligibility, etc.— see a CUNY
• Combat stigma against receiving assistance
• Provide a benefits navigator to help students, faculty and staff obtain public benefits.  (Illinois, Oregon, and California have laws requiring benefits navigators at every public college and in California, they must also have a basic needs center)
• Benefits Access for Student Success: A Toolkit For Leveraging Data to Find Eligible Students
• Establish a WIC Center on campus

Non-Pantry Food on Campus

• Tax-free status for food items in campus convenience stores
• Have a dining dollars/points donation program so students can donate unused meals to other students—see a NYU example in the NY Times or the Swipe Out Hunger website
• Provide meal vouchers to campus dining facilities
• Distribute meal vouchers through campus resource centers
• Create a food recovery app connecting leftover food from office events to students, faculty, and staff who sign up for the app—see UNM’s LoboEats or the CSULB Beach Bites App
• Provide to-go boxes at all food events to encourage students to take home extra food
• Open an on-campus grocery store with fresh affordable food that accepts SNAP
• Establish an on-campus greenhouse—see SFCC’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Program
• Expand the National Free Lunch Program to higher education—read more here

Food Off-Campus

• Provide regular transportation to a grocery store (students without cars would report the need)
• Provide gift cards to grocery stores, especially ones with gas stations

SNAP

• Allow students to use EBT at on campus convenience stores—see a Cal State example
• Allow EBT for purchasing meal plans
• Define “job training” broadly in SNAP applications to expand eligibility for college students

Housing

• Create a website with housing resources—see a CUNY example
• Upgrade or redevelop current housing with an emphasis on accessibility and affordability while increasing bed count, which is often more affordable than building new
• Renegotiate all current 3P (public private partnership) agreements to provide institutional control of housing stock considered campus housing
• Partner with the housing authority to set aside affordable housing for students
• Ensure housing is accessible (e.g. wheelchair ramps, etc.)
• Have family housing—see an example from NMSU or Ruth Matthews Bourger Women With Children Program, which provides free two-bedroom housing for four years
• Allow Medicaid to be used to fund on-campus housing vouchers
• Provide eviction prevention help—see a NYC coalition example
• Create funds for off-campus rental assistance—see New Mexico ERAP
• Create fenced parking lots on campus for students living out of their cars to camp overnight—see the Long Beach CC program

Other

• Offer free tax prep services—currently offered by the UNM Center for Financial Capability
• Promote non-work study campus-based work programs for students without work-study
• Create or expand accessible childcare on campus—see an example from Catherine University
• Create or expand emergency aid—examples: Washington State has state funded Student Emergency Aid Grant and the Minnesota Office of Higher Education established Emergency Assistance for Postsecondary Students
• Review and ensure living expenses calculation is accurate, which affects the estimated cost of attendance and estimated financial aid
• Improve FAFSA completion rates

Acknowledgment

Thank you to Sara Goldrick-Rab for her contribution to this list and her ongoing efforts on behalf of solutions to basic needs insecurity.