The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how college students often struggle fulfilling basic needs such as food and shelter while pursuing an education. In 2019, 45% of students in higher education reported experiencing food insecurity in the prior 30 days, including 48% of community college students. That was before the pandemic and the economic disruptions it caused.

In March, EPCC released findings of a student questionnaire that surveyed students about their basic needs during the pandemic. Of the 1,399 students that participated, 39% experienced food insecurity 30 days prior.

“I feel bad to say help me with food or cooking,” Paredes said about her two children, one a university student and the other a high school student.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as, “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.”

In its simplest understanding, “food insecurity basically means people don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” said Susan Goodell, CEO of El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank.

Goodell said that food insecurity is a transient issue and typically not a permanent condition.

“Some people are chronically food insecure but that’s not the majority,” Goodell said. “Typically people will come into food insecurity and leave food insecurity rather fluidly.”

High levels of poverty and what are known as “ALICE households and individuals”— asset limited, income-constrained, employed — are closely correlated factors that may contribute to El Pasoans being food insecure, Goodell said.

“People are working but not bringing enough income to pay for basic needs,” Goodell said of the ALICE category.

In 2018, El Paso had a 15% rate of food insecurity and 125,910 people were food insecure, according to the latest data from Feeding America. El Paso’s food insecurity rate was the same as the state of Texas.

“Most of us think of food as a humanitarian issue, but when we look at the issue from a societal aspect we quickly come to the realization that food impacts every other aspect of life. It’s not just a humanitarian issue, it’s a human rights issue,” Goodell said.

Read the full article about food insecurity college students by Jewél Jackson at The 74.