Gemma Peacock has little money left over after she has paid her rent. She worked all summer to save up funds to supplement her university maintenance loan, but near the end of term she has a battle to make ends meet.
“It can be stressful,” says Peacock, a 20-year-old psychology student at Leeds Beckett University. “If I’m struggling I will walk every day instead of paying for the bus, and some days I have to walk for over two hours just to get to and from uni. I can afford basic food with my loan, but a lot of the time, I’m not eating a balanced diet.”
That’s why Peacock turned to the food bank that Leeds Beckett students’ union (LBSU) has set up to help struggling students. It has allowed her to stock up on basics like pasta and beans, freeing up more cash for fresh food.
Tucked away discreetly next door to the student bar, the food bank is a small shop space adorned with fairy lights and shelves stacked with pasta, rice, tins of soup, chocolate biscuits and tampons. To the side are crates of fresh vegetables.
Dotted around the shop are signs reading, poignantly, “Give or take”. The initiative is about encouraging students to donate, as much as it is about helping those in need, say the volunteers.
With the coronavirus outbreak making students even more financially vulnerable, the service has become more important than ever, and the student union has increased the opening hours and organised to drop food packages at students’ homes to ensure all are provided for, even if they’re self-isolating.
One of the main challenges is giving people the confidence to use it. “A lot of people are quite embarrassed to say they need help,” says Fozia Iqbal, one of the students who helps to run the service.
Some do come in regularly, while for others it is a stop-gap. “One girl who came in told me that she needed something because she was getting paid tomorrow, and she needed to eat tonight. I thought, ‘Without this she probably would have gone hungry’.”
Iqbal herself has only about £100 left each term after paying rent. Last year she juggled three part-time jobs while studying for her master’s in architecture, relying on the student union’s pay-as-you-feel soup kitchen on the run-up to payday.
Jake Butler, a student finance expert from Save the Student, a student money advice site, says its latest accommodation survey shows the average maintenance loan now doesn’t cover the average student rent.
According to the survey, published in February, the average student rent is now £126 a week (£6,552 a year), and £162 in London (£8,400 a year). The survey polled 2,168 students in December 2019 and January 2020.
Students receive on average £540 a month in their maintenance loans, according to Save the Student’s calculations. With the average student rent working out at £547.82 a month, many students have little or no money left for food and other essentials.
Unsurprisingly, 62% of students think the maintenance loan is not enough.
Jess Carrier, the welfare and community officer at LBSU, says the system doesn’t work for many students: “Even though it is supposedly means-tested, not everyone is supported by their family.”
Peacock says: “My mum works seven days a week, so it’s not really fair of me to ask her because she’s struggling herself anyway. I don’t want to take her money off her.”
The fact that students are turning to food banks at university is worrying, says Butler. “Unless the government does something about the maintenance loan, we could see university food banks opening up in more locations. The system is long overdue for reform.”
Leeds Beckett isn’t the only university to start a food bank. Last year the University of Kent launched Stuff – a student food bank and freecycle scheme offering food and recycled homeware. Kent is planning to keep the service running throughout the coronavirus crisis.
At Northumbria University, the students’ union has had to close its food bank service supplying food parcels, but has redirected all provisions to help self-isolating students.
Staffordshire University student union has been running its Food Hub since 2014. In the last academic year the service was accessed 183 times, and numbers are set to increase in 2019-20, with more than 100 students having used the Food Hub so far. Like LBSU, they’re stocking up on provisions from wholesalers at the moment to ensure they have enough to keep students going.
The students’ union recognises that even while avoiding the term “food bank” students still face stigma, and has started using food vouchers that allow students to get food at retail outlets on site.
Connor Bayliss, president of Staffordshire University students’ union, says: “Sixty-five per cent of our students are local, many are mature or commute, and a high percentage of them are juggling caring or parental responsibilities and part-time work with their studies. Some students, such as those with children, are entitled to universal credit, and some have been “significantly affected” by the problems of its introduction, he says.
Stoke-on-Trent, where it is based, is ranked as the 14th most deprived local authority area in England. “In some cases, support can mean providing enough food for their families.”
Eve Crossan Jory, vice-president for welfare of the National Union of Students, says she is “appalled but unsurprised” at the increase in food banks. “Student maintenance funding is woefully inadequate, while rents are spiralling out of control. In one of the wealthiest societies, the fact that students and non-students alike need to access food banks is shameful.”
