Hungry and Embarrassed: How Orange Coast College is Overcoming Social Stigma to Help Students Access Basic Needs

For many college students across the United States, a lack of food and housing is a daily reality. Existing research paints a bleak picture: studies have shown that, on average, U.S. college students are three times more likely to experience food insecurity than the general population (source). In a recent University of California, Los Angeles study, 42 percent of students reported that they experienced food insecurity in the previous 12 months (source). A similar study across the 17 campuses that comprise the City University of New York (CUNY) system found that 40 percent of respondents struggle to access adequate food sources (source). 

The numbers from two-year colleges in the U.S. - which typically serve higher numbers of underrepresented students than their four-year counterparts - are worse. In a March 2019 study conducted by the Hope Center that surveyed 40,000 California Community college students across 57 campuses, 52 percent of students reported food insecurity and 60 percent reported housing insecurity in the previous 12 months; one in five students reported that they were flat out homeless (source). 

There’s little doubt that a lack of basic needs, such as food and housing, among college students in such high numbers constitutes a crisis, and government agencies have responded accordingly. In 2015 the State of California passed legislation aimed at improving coordination between food pantries and local community and state resources, such as CalFresh, which provides food stamps to qualifying individuals. Indeed, food pantries have become ubiquitous on college campuses throughout the country - the CUNY system, for example, created “Single Stop” offices on all of its campuses meant to link students with food resources in addition to government programs and resources.

However, use of these types of on-campus resources among the most at-risk populations of students remains low. A 2016 report of nearly 4,000 students from 34 college campuses found that only 14 percent of food insecure students utilized a food pantry or food bank in the month prior (source). Additionally, in the CUNY study only 7.2 percent of students reported using food pantry or other food assistance programs in the previous 12 months, and only 6.4 percent of students reported using food stamps, even though 18 percent believed themselves to be eligible. In the Hope Lab study, the authors noted that according to the Government Accountability Office “57 percent of students at risk of food insecurity and eligible for SNAP did not collect those benefits.” 

Research that looks at the effectiveness of food pantries and “one-stop-shop” type facilities on college campuses is sparse. In a systematic review of research literature on food insecurity among post-secondary students, researchers found that even though food pantries and one-stop-shop-type facilities that are intended to connect students with basic needs resources are being widely implemented at colleges and universities across the county, there has not been a single study examining the effectiveness of food pantries on reducing food insecurity on college campuses (source). 

Stigma as a Barrier

A common barrier cited within the existing research addressing a lack of basic needs among college students is the stigma associated with use of resources aimed at alleviating food and housing insecurity. 

In a University of Florida survey study of 900 students over a three-week period, researchers found that the main impediment to using the food pantry was social stigma and embarrassment (68 percent of respondents). The second-highest barrier was found to be “insufficient information on how the program works and what determines eligibility” (33.8 percent of respondents). Some responses from this study included: “I would feel intimidated to walk in because of the stigma around food insecurity”; “swiping in at the door is too visible, I am ashamed”; “I would be embarrassed to be seen there”; and “you don’t want others to see that’s where you get your food from” (source). 

Interviews of homeless students reveal a similar level of embarrassment and shame around their circumstances. In a New York Times op-ed written by leading national researcher and founder of the Hope Center Sara Goldrick-Rab and Professor Katharine Broton, a student described her perceived shame at not having a place to live and the negative effect it had on her academic pursuits: “Without a home and without meals, I felt like an imposter. I was shamefully worrying about food, and shamefully staring at the clock to make it out of class in time to get in line for the local shelter when I should have been giving my undivided attention to the lecturer” (source). 

Research studies that address perceptions of stigmatized populations demonstrate that this fear of judgement is warranted. A 2011 study by professors Cendri Hutcherson and James Gross found that images of homeless individuals evoked feelings of disgust and contempt in participants (source). A more recent study by professors Katherine Lafreniere and Robert Fisher dove deeper into the moral nature of stigmatized populations, and eventually made the argument that the only way to overcome stigma is through virtuous acts (source). 

This link between morality and stigma as it relates to at-risk college students poses a number of problems, not the least of which is that these same students are often grappling with significant trauma, and do not possess the emotional skills or tools to overcome the challenges of their stigmas. According to a study by professors Brooks Keeshin and Kristine Campbell, 84 percent of homeless youth screened positive for physical or sexual abuse (source). This suggests that there may exists multiple layers of stigma - the stigma of being a survivor of abuse, layered with the stigma of being homeless. 

It should come as no surprise, then, that stigma has been found to have many negative impacts on stigmatized populations. This includes increased risk of anxiety and depression, as well as lower self esteem and academic achievement, and that populations who experience stigmatization are less likely to both seek and receive help (source)(source)(source). 

Stigma Management Communication Theory

According to Dr. Rebecca Meisenbach, stigma is a largely discourse-driven phenomena taking place between both stigmatized and non-stigmatized populations. Meisenbach goes on to explain that “stigmatization is a process that humans are not able to eliminate but must manage daily.” It’s through this lens that Meisenbach develops her theory of Stigma Management Communication (SMC). The SMC model “begins with a stigmatizing message and ends with management outcomes.”  

Meisenbach writes that “viewing stigma as determined by individuals’ perceptions and communication aligns with social constructionist assumptions in which discourse does not reflect an objective world as much as it subjectively creates one.” SMC theory implies that since stigmas are constructed through language, or communication, they can evolve, change, and even disappear altogether. 

Most studies of stigma do not focus on a communication perspective, even though the strategies researchers propose to address stigmas are highly communicative. Some coping strategies that have been proposed include seeing the stigma as a blessing, voluntarily disclosing the stigma, using levity (humor) to break the tension, and engaging in re-education about the stigma (source). 

In an effort to bridge research focused on existing stigma management strategies, the SMC model maps six strategy categories: accepting, avoiding, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, denying and ignoring/displaying. The research for this article will focus on accepting, avoiding and denying strategies of managing stigma, since these strategies are the most applicable to the subject of college students experiencing housing and food insecurity. 

OCC's Pirates' Cove

According to Goldrick-Rab and Broton’s NYT op-ed, efforts to address food and housing insecurity focused more on policies and administrative functions, like financial aid. Existing research has rarely focused on ensuring students have access to practical resources, such as food and housing. 

As if to emphasize this very point, in the wake of the recently published Hope Center study of California community college students, California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley issued a press release on March 7, 2019 in which he stated “This … report should serve as a call to action for fixing the state’s outdated financial aid system and expanding need-based assistance for community college students” (source). 

Given that data has shown an unwillingness on the part of at-risk students to utilize on-campus and community resources for fear of feeling stigmatized and ostracized, this approach seems short-sighted. 

In an effort to find out how stigma is sabotaging efforts to reach college students most in need of food and housing resources, I spent one to two hours each week for four weeks at Orange Coast College Pirates’ Cove food pantry observing the space. The Cove is open five days a week, and has a fixed schedule that includes regular deliveries and certain meetings on specific days. 

The Pirates’ Cove is unique in that it is almost exclusively manned by current or former students who self-identify as having experienced food and housing insecurity. The Cove also utilizes unique marketing techniques, including announcements on the College’s App about certain shipments and food delivery dates. 

In order to add more context to this study, I also interviewed OCC Student Equity Coordinator Maricela Sandoval, who oversees the Pirates’ Cove. In a past interview conducted for OCC Magazine, Maricela stated: 

This is a beautiful campus. To be here, I think, makes you feel promise, it makes you feel really good about your future. It can make you feel all of those things and it can also make some students feel inadequate. I can make some students think ‘If I need a resource, I’m going to find it elsewhere but it won’t be on this campus because this campus is abundant, and it’s not supposed to meet my basic needs. 

Finally, I interviewed Cal State Fullerton Care Services Coordinator Marlene Romero, who oversees Tuffy’s Basic Needs and Services in order to obtain a four-year perspective on stigmas around food and housing insecurity. 

Here’s what I found: 

*Lisa rushes into Orange Coast College’s Pirates’ Cove on a Friday at 10 a.m., looking frazzled. Cove employee Megan Lattimer, typing away on her computer, glances over and calls out “You okay Lisa?” to which Lisa replies “Why do you ask?” Without missing a beat Megan says “You look stressed, anything I can do?” “Make me young and beautiful,” comes the reply. “You ARE young and beautiful,” Megan says. 

Lisa’s kids wait outside in the always-sunny courtyard of the Cove, lounging on green picnic tables and looking bored. They’re about to be subjected to their mom’s two-hour math class and they’re hungry. Normally they’d be in school, but they’re off this week - “That stupid bunny vacation,” Lisa says in her thick, Eastern European accent. She grabs two bananas and two cereal bars, and tells Megan she’ll be back later for a more thorough grocery run. 

*Billy is distressed. He needs to find a place to live fast, and so far, he isn’t having any luck. He knows why: with tattoos and piercings covering most of his body (not to mention a serious mohawk) people make assumptions about him. 

He had a line on a promising place but it was a scam. A cute little house in Eastside Costa Mesa - the couple that met him there gave him a full tour and said they just needed someone to stay in the house as a sort of “caretaker” because they had to temporarily move out of state for a job. They asked for his bank account information and social security number to check his credit. Also, first and last month’s rent. By the time Billy realized what was happening, he was out $1500. 

He comes into the Pirates’ Cove over the course of several days, looking for help, and employee Allison Williams is trying - she scans low-income housing listings online and prints out the ones that are in his price range. But Billy keeps coming back empty-handed. “You should have taken the Fountain Valley one, you would have had your own room” she tells him. “Oh my god, AL-LI-SON, you should’ve smelled that room. Somebody died in that room. Eight or nine hundred dollar bills should buy you something better than a funeral home,” Billy replies with exasperation. 

Billy finished an associate’s degree at Saddleback College last year and now he’s at OCC, on the waiting list for the X-ray Technician program, which can be anywhere from three to five years. He’s taking classes in the meantime so he can hold his spot, and thinks he might be able to get his pilot’s license through the Aviation Science program. “I already have my trucker’s license, my motorcycle license, why not learn to fly planes?” he asks. 

Most of Billy’s stuff is in storage while he couch surfs, waiting to find a place to call home. “I’m actually homeless,” he says incredulously. “I have nice cars, nice stuff. But I’m homeless.”

The Pirates’ Cove is located right in the center of campus, next to OCC’s Journalism building and the Coast Report student newspaper offices. A couple wide and shallow steps lead to the front door, which is flanked by picnic benches. There’s little-to-no shade in the courtyard just outside the Cove. The door is always propped open during business hours, and there is usually a box of something on top of a plastic crate just outside with a big sign that says “FREE.” It’s a strategy intended to grab students’ attention and it works - students walking by hone in on the word “FREE” as they cross the courtyard. They narrow their eyes and redirect their backpacked bodies to get a closer look. As they near the promise of something for nothing they notice the door of the Cove - it’s always open - and they hear the voices inside and catch the faint scent of fresh bread. The vast majority of the time, that’s all it takes to get them inside. 

Upon entering the Pirates’ Cove there’s a counter to the right, with a pretty young student worker sitting behind it. She smiles warmly, greets newcomers with a friendly face, and scans their student IDs. All students need IDs to access the Cove. 

The Pirates’ Cove is small but the staff make good use of the space. There are racks arranged in a rectangle in the center of the room, with other resources like a fridge, freezer and microwave placed strategically around the perimeter. Large baskets are lined along the back wall, and they are filled with fruits and vegetables in varying states of freshness. 

The first stop past the check-in counter is a bookcase with small baskets of fruit, granola bars, oatmeal packs, cookies and fruit snacks. This is the “Grab N’ Go” area where students can quickly grab a snack and drink in between classes. Past that is a large refrigerator, on loan from Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County. The contents of the fridge change daily, but some common items include gallon-sized milk containers, trays of eggs (some broken), lettuce, butter, yogurt and cheese. 

There is a small room directly across from the check-in counter that has two desks on opposite walls and a few boxes. The room is zoned as a “storage closet” in the original design plans for the Pirates’ Cove, however the staff uses it as a separate office space that offers a little more privacy for students who are applying for aid. 

The Pirates’ Cove has the look and feel of a mini grocery store, from the red handheld baskets to the smell - a mixture of fresh bread and produce. Every student who comes to the Cove has to identify what they are there for - “Grab N’ Go” or “Groceries” - and as the front desk worker scans their IDs, students hear a “beep” that sounds similar to what they might hear at the checkout of any regular store. 

If a student has come to the Cove for “Grab N’ Go” they can take up to two snack items and two drinks at a time. If they are there for “Groceries” they can take one bag of food (they have to bring their own bag) up to two times per week. There are various rules and guidelines posted on several walls: “Pirates Cove Pantry Guidelines” and “Grocery Item Limits.” 

However, even though the rules are clearly stated, they are loosely followed. Students are allowed to shop for more than five minutes. More than three students are allowed in the Cove at one time. Bags are given out to students who forget to bring one. This is intentional: the Pirates’ Cove staff work hard to create an atmosphere that is welcoming and not overly rigid. 

Approximately 250 students visit the Pirates’ Cove each day, or about 1,250 students per week. For being a campus resource that is in such high demand, the Cove is minimally staffed; there is one full-time employee, three student workers, and a couple regular volunteers. The student workers - Allison, Megan and Bianca - form the backbone of the Pirates’ Cove. Bianca mans the front desk, Allison manages inventory and does some case management, and Megan does a little bit of everything, but mostly focuses on case management by connecting students with government resources like CalFresh. 

The Pirates’ Cove is open five days a week and hours vary. On Mondays, the food pantry closes early so that the staff can meet with Maricela. She wants to hear what’s working, what isn’t, what challenges they are having, what successes. Sometimes Maricela is too bogged down with other commitments and cancels the meeting. When this happens, the staff usually keeps the Pirates’ Cove open past regular hours.

On Tuesdays, the Cove opens late, at 10:30 a.m., because they get their big weekly delivery from Second Harvest. The students who are regulars start lining up outside the door by 9 a.m., eager to get their grocery shopping done while there’s still a lot of options to choose from and the food is fresh. 

The Pirates’ Cove has many allies on campus, including faculty, students and staff who directly or indirectly support the facility. For example, Megan recalls how one classified employee recently got married, and asked all of her guests to donate to the Cove instead of purchasing gifts: 

Megan: She saved all the checks until Giving Tuesday, because the [OCC] Foundation promised to match donations. So we ended up getting double, just because of that.

Other ways that the campus supports the Pirates’ Cove include: menstrual product drives through the student-led Feminist Club, hygiene drives through the Garrison Honors Center, canned food drives through the Classified and Academic unions, and food donations from the instructional food services program and OCC Food Riders club. Faculty offer extra credit to students who donate to the Cove, and some simply walk their entire class over for a quick tour of the facility to introduce them to it. 

The students who visit the Pirates’ Cove on a daily basis are diverse - young, old, male, female, white, latino, asian, black and muslim. Student athletes stop by regularly wearing their uniforms. Student government officers come in with their branded t-shirts. A maintenance employee stops by from time to time for a quick snack. 

Students often recognize each other and use the space to socialize. When it’s really busy and there’s a line out the door, staff has to gently encourage visitors to move along so others can come in. One way they do this is by loudly telling those in line that they will have to wait a minute until a couple people leave because the space is too crowded. Lingering students usually take the hint and move along. 

Some students bring items to the Cove to donate, and then turn around and shop. In one instance, a student who is a regular customer brought fresh vegetables that she had grown in her garden to donate and then asked “do you mind if I shop a little?” She took home a bag full of pasta, cereal, and other dry goods. 

A large population of students that use the Cove are from foreign countries. OCC currently has approximately 1,200 international students representing 37 countries. The tuition for these students is $22,420 per year (about a 190 percent markup compared to tuition for CA residents who take a full load of classes), and they must provide bank statements demonstrating that exact amount in available funds every five months in order to stay enrolled at the College. Because of this, there is a misperception on campus that most international students at OCC are coming from wealthy families overseas. Megan dispels that notion: 

A counselor once told me that a lot of times [international students] have that bank account that they can’t touch, and then they come here and they’re on their own. Their parents, and grandparents, and aunts, and uncles … the whole family … are putting all their eggs in that one basket. A lot get jobs through federal work study, but it’s not enough.

The Pirates’ Cove has one volunteer that it leans on heavily. Steve Parker comes in three, sometimes four days a week to manage the Pirates’ Cove inventory. He often brings donations in his large truck, and when he’s not at the Cove he’s reaching out to local food banks and nonprofits to forge partnerships. 

Steve owned and operated the Tulsa Rib Company in Orange for nearly 20 years before selling it last summer so that he could retire. He found himself with more free time than he knew what to do with, so his wife Liz, who works in OCC’s Foundation, suggested he offer his expertise to the Pirates’ Cove, which was still getting its footing six months after opening. Almost immediately, Steve as hooked, the familiarity of feeding hungry people providing a natural fit for his expertise. 

One-Stop-Shop

The Pirates’ Cove was never meant to be just a food pantry. When it opened in early 2018, it was described by Maricela Sandoval as a “one-stop location for students who need immediate help, such as those experiencing food insecurity or homelessness.” The Cove was always intended to serve as a gateway to more long-term solutions for students who qualify for aid, and that component of the facility is a big-part of its day-to-day operations. 

As previously mentioned, this model is widely seen at colleges and universities across the country. However, there is a wide range of approaches when it comes to how colleges and universities get food into the hands of hungry students, or how they attempt to place roofs over their heads. 

At California State University, Fullerton, a resource center called Tuffy’s Basic Needs Services also bills itself as a one-stop shop for basic needs like food and housing, but utilizes resources that are already in place on campus to connect students with assistance. 

Marlene Romero: Because so many CSUs have food pantries the thought is that this space is a food pantry, and many individuals walk in and ask “Where’s the food?” when in reality we feel that our food assistance program is robust and works well for the student population that we have. We do provide food to students, it’s just instead of having a food pantry with canned goods, we’re able to connect them to the on-campus dining halls where they can get up to two weeks of meals and go in there three times a day to access a fresh, warm, nutritious meal.

Both this approach and the one used at OCC’s Pirates’ Cove have their benefits and drawbacks. The Cove has been largely successful in normalizing the facility itself - it’s centrally located on campus, and a diverse population of students are regularly taking advantage of the resource. However, getting students who qualify for government aid like CalFresh - or as it’s known federally, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - to take that additional step of applying for benefits presents its challenges. 

Megan: I try to pay attention to who’s coming in. If someone is a regular, I wait until maybe the third or fourth time [they come in] and then I casually say ‘are you on CalFresh benefits? Would you like to apply? It’s really easy.’

However, Megan is challenged by the stigma associated with a lack of basic needs.

Megan: They tell me ‘oh, I don’t need that’ … or ‘someone else needs that more, I don’t want to take food away from anyone.’ I tell them ‘hey this is free money from the government. That’s money you won’t have to spend on food, that you can spend on other stuff. Like books.’ 

According to Marlene at Cal State Fullerton, it’s not uncommon for students to lack an understanding of what it means to be food insecure. “A student might not realize that what they’re experiencing is food insecurity,” she says. “I think that’s something we have to consider as well.” 

Additionally, students might have an inaccurate perception of what utilizing food assistance looks like, because the system itself has changed so much in the past three decades and stereotypes about “food stamps” continue to be pervasive. 

Maricela: What if students don’t want to apply because they don’t want to be a person with vouchers? Maybe they don’t know that’s not how it works anymore. Maybe they remember being a kid and seeing or being with their parent or their guardian and feeling the shame of the line at the grocery store. We may not be doing enough to educate our students about what it looks like after they get accepted [into CalFresh]. That is a barrier. 

The effort to raise awareness and increase education around a lack of basic needs demonstrates the “accepting” management strategy outlined in SMC theory, in which stigmatized individuals internalize a stigma as part of their identity . The basic idea is this: the more educated students are about what it means to lack basic needs, the more they will be able to self-identify if they themselves lack basic needs. 

According to Meisenbach, accepting a stigma as part of one’s identity can sometimes generate bonding between stigmatized individuals, but it can also cause isolation. This is where a space like the Pirates’ Cove has an edge over Tuffy’s Basic Needs - whereas the Cove provides a permanent physical space for students who are food or housing insecure to gather and bond, Tuffy’s Basic Needs gives them a temporary resource to be used among the general, non-stigmatized population of students (vouchers for student dining halls). One approach promotes bonding, and the other isolation. 

Another example of the accepting strategy that was observed during this study was when students brought items to donate to the Pirates’ Cove, and then immediately turned around to shop. In the instance in which a student brought items from her garden to donate in exchange for dry goods, it suggested that students a) mitigate feelings of shame by contributing to the food pantry b) feel an ownership of the pantry, and see their contribution as essential to that ownership or c) see the pantry as an opportunity to barter and trade, thereby reducing their stigma. 

Providing a private space to seek assistance is integral to another stigma management strategy - avoiding. According to Meisenbach, avoiding causes stigmatized individuals to distance themselves from the stigma attribute and NOT claim it as part of their identity. 

At the Pirates’ Cove, the staff struggles with giving some students the privacy they need in order to apply for benefits.

The closet/office space is located within the Cove itself, which necessitates that a student announce their need in an otherwise safe space - put more simply, the Pirates’ Cove is a campus resource that a broad range of students use, but which fewer students genuinely need. The students who do qualify for resources like CalFresh might not want to announce their need - or even ADMIT their need - among their more affluent peers. 

According to Maricela, this challenge may be region specific, since Orange Coast College is located in one of the wealthiest regions of not just the state of California, but also the United States. 

Maricela: You get parents who rent, who move to this area for their children’s education. That’s the story. ‘We sacrificed owning our own property for our children’s education.’ But then the children are raised in an affluent environment that doesn’t reflect their household. And their access. I think that’s where creating a vision for yourself is based on what’s around you, versus creating a vision for yourself based on what’s attainable, immediately anyway. If it’s not nurtured or acknowledged, I can see how it could create a real dissonance for a young person.

Megan reiterates the need for a private space in response to being asked what the biggest challenge is in getting students to apply for government benefits. 

Megan: We need a separate room, away from the craziness [of the Pirates’ Cove.] We have the office but .. it’s not enough. People are coming in and out, it’s filled with boxes. It’s hard enough to get students to show up for appointments, but then to have them show up and their appointment is interrupted because we’re short staffed or someone is unpacking boxes. It’d be nice to be able to close the door and focus.

The last stigma management strategy this study looks at is denying, in which stigmatized individuals challenge a stigma in an effort to eliminate it altogether. At the Pirates’ Cove this is evidenced in the founding of the facility, and the involvement of students in the planning of a space that they knew would meet the needs of students on campus. 

Maricela: The people who launched that space primarily still there. They built it knowing the students. Some were students themselves, and still are. They built the Pirates’ Cove knowing what the student experience on this campus is. And they built it with the idea of what would bring them into the space. There was a direct line of connection to the need and to the answer to that need. I think they’ve gained trust by being credible.

All three student workers at the Pirates’ Cove have experience with food and housing insecurity. Megan, in particular, has been vocal about her struggles; when she began attending OCC in 2017, she was homeless and lived in her car. She was pulled into the planning process for the Cove due in part to her experience - she was able to answer the question “what kind of space would a student like ME need?”

As an employee of the Pirates’ Cove, Megan is adept at building a sense of community. She greets people by name. She remembers details about their lives, and asks for updates. One one occasion, a young man came bounding through the door like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, and with a huge smile on his face announced “I’m here!” Two friends followed behind, equally giddy. After a round of high fives and trading jokes, the boys scanned their IDs and picked out snacks to-go. “Those are my Aquarium Boys,” Megan said, referencing OCC’s Dennis Kelly Public Aquarium where the young men work on campus. “They’ve been coming here since the beginning.” 

Certainly it warrants more research, but my research suggests that allowing students to lead efforts to combat stigma is an effective way to begin to eliminate the stigma altogether.

Marlene echoes this sentiment when asked what might entice a student to visit Tuffy’s Basic Needs. 

Marlene: It’s their peers. I think there’s a lot of value in hearing something from someone who is your own age rather than hearing it from someone who is an adult who you could easily say ‘they’re telling me that because that’s their job. That’s what they’re supposed to do.’