Students aren’t only worried about assignments and exams, but they’re also anxious about how they’ll be able to afford their next meal.
The issue of food insecurity isn’t out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s something many students will navigate during their time at Queen’s. For some, it looks like stretching out groceries, searching for affordable housing near campus, or struggling to afford basic living essentials on top of mandatory, expensive textbooks. For others, it’s having to choose between food and rent, relying on food banks just to survive. As a fourth-year student in my final weeks at Queen’s, I’ve witnessed the normalization of these struggles socially and academically—it’s something that must be changed for future students.
Food insecurity has always been an issue on campus, and it’s continued to negatively shape a significant number of students lived realities, with little to no structural change. According to the Queen’s Food Insecurity Report, 41 per cent of students said they worry about running out of money to buy food, 39 per cent can’t afford nutritional meals, and over 11 per cent reported they skipped meals or went an entire day without eating due to financial constraints.
The same report highlights how marginalized students experience food insecurity at disproportionately higher rates, underlining the need for an intersectional framework that works to address these inequities instead of reproducing them, as these students experience significant barriers to basic necessities.
As grocery and living prices continue to rise in Kingston, so too will the demand for food access on campus. This is a growing crisis, not empty statistics.
In response to this crisis, Queen’s has created food access initiatives, including Swipe-It-Forward, the PEACH (Providing Equal Access, Changing Hunger) market, food donations, and reduced prices before items expire. These programs reflect Queen’s awareness of the growing food insecurity issue and how the University has worked to increase food access to students.
However, these programs aren’t enough.
These programs heavily rely on students and volunteers to facilitate them, and don’t exactly offer long-term solutions. Students donate meal swipes to each other, volunteer to operate programs, and organize other initiatives regarding food access. As such, mutual aid has become an essential aspect of student life and access on campus.
Scholar Dean Spade explores mutual aid as a form of political participation and collective solidarity of shared struggles. However, mutual aid efforts often emerge due to institutions and systems that fail to address basic human needs, exposing deep-rooted structural inequities within our institutions.
The growing necessity for student food access initiatives exposes institutional gaps, shifting away from individual choice to instead look at deeply embedded systemic issues that must be addressed.
Although the food access initiatives are important and provide immediate relief for students, the rise of food insecurity showcases how this simply isn’t enough. This demands that Queen’s address systemic conditions of tuition cost, the rising cost of living in Kingston, and the cost of basic human necessities (such as food and hygiene products) that every student needs to survive.
In the report, the Queen’s Food Insecurity Advisory Committee wrote that they recognize these initiatives as a “band-aid solution” that helps facilitate short-term needs, and doesn’t address the root causes of these injustices. Showcasing that even the University is aware of the lack of long-term systemic change initiatives within these food access programs.
Despite Queen’s acknowledging this, they continue to uphold the same responses as food insecurity continues to rise.
As a result, radical care becomes essential within these conversations and policies.
Ethics of care and healing justice approaches emphasize how collective care must be built within the core foundations of institutions, instead of creating short-term solutions only once problems arise. The article about healing justice argues that institutions must create environments that address the root causes of structural issues to foster collective well-being.
As many students move away from home to attend Queen’s, it’s imperative that the institution recognizes how basic needs should be a part of student life foundations and not an afterthought.
Working to address this crisis goes beyond food access initiatives, such as food donations or reduced pricing of expiring food. It requires the institution to re-evaluate policies and reforms regarding financial aid, reflecting rising tuition and living expenses, and to prioritize food as a fundamental aspect of students’ well-being, specifically marginalized students.
Students are actively feeding each other—and until the institution creates long-term solutions and addresses the root causes, this crisis will only grow.
Teagan Florio is a fourth-year Health & Gender Studies student.
Tags
Food bank, food insecurity, Food programs, Queen's
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