A survey in London has shone a light on students who are couch-surfing or in emergency accommodation. Its authors fear it’s the tip of an iceberg

At 5am on the day of the eviction university student Mary Nadunga woke her three children, fed her baby and started packing their belongings into a hired van. At 10.45am the bailiffs arrived and handed her a paper declaring the family officially homeless.

“I was vacuuming because I wanted to leave the place clean and they told me to stop and give the keys to the landlord. It was at this moment it hit me that we were actually homeless. I cried but I told myself to stop and be strong,” she says.

Nadunga was in the final year of a BSc honours degree in health and social policy at London Metropolitan University (LMU) and it was just before a deadline for assignments. And she is not the only one. A survey by LMU last month found that homelessness among students is a hidden problem many are too ashamed to admit.

It found students sleeping on floors and couches, sharing homes with friends and relatives, in hostels or in local council emergency accommodation. Patrick Mulrenan, a senior lecturer in housing and inclusion at LMU, who with colleagues Simon Cox and Julia Atkins conducted the survey, says: “I was shocked by the scale and experiences of homelessness.” They surveyed undergraduates at just one of LMU’s 10 schools – the school of social professions – and found 27 students homeless.

Many are parents returning to education to better their lives, who end up in poor-quality temporary accommodation and are moved frequently, often far away from the university, says Mulrenan. “Some were travelling two to three hours to get here. Most cried in the interviews because it was the first time they had admitted being homeless. They had been too proud to tell their friends or even their families,” he says.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Patrick Mulrenan, senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University, found 27 homeless students in just one of the university’s 10 schools

The increase in homelessness has coincided with a rise in the number of mature students taking advantage of student loans to get a degree and better jobs. But with no solid income or families or friends to guarantee their rents, they struggle to find a place to live.

Mulrenan found it wasn’t a problem only for mature students, however. Young, single students had been put on the streets when landlords sold properties, or because they had been unable to provide the rent guarantees private landlords demanded.

Melita Warwick, 23, from Donegal in Ireland, was made homeless in her first year of an LMU degree in social work. “The landlord sold the flat and evicted us in the January of my first year,” she says. “We found another place, but two days before we were due to move in they told us to put the rent and deposit into a strange account and we became suspicious. It was a con and so we didn’t pay but I had nowhere to live. I ended up crying on the doorstep of a former LMU student and he let me stay for a while. It was very difficult doing my assignments and I got the worst marks for them.”

The new student maintenance loans for living costs of up to £8,200 a year or £10,702 in London are supposed to make it possible for anyone to attend university, regardless of income and background. But universities have been selling off their accommodation and signing agreements with private companies to build higher-end accommodation to attract rich international students. Poorer students are being left to the mercy of the private rental market, says Unipol, the non-profit student accommodation organisation. In London the ownership of student accommodation changed from 30 to 50% privately owned between 2011-12 and 2015-16, it says.

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Martin Blakey, Unipol chief executive, is not surprised by the LMU finding. “It’s hard to get figures on homelessness because universities don’t monitor it but I strongly suspect that it is a problem not just for LMU,” he says. “Even in Leeds, when we hold viewings for family accommodation we find that people want to move in within days. When we ask about their present contracts, they are often extremely vague about where they are living. In London, student accommodation is being left to the market, so special groups, such as students with families, need greater help and support if they re to survive in the market-driven jungle.”

Mulrenan believes he and his colleagues have found the tip of an iceberg. “Just today two more came forward. Given what we have found, we believe homelessness among students will be a problem for post-1992 universities with a non-traditional intake in any area with high housing pressures,” he says.

Housing is the second biggest problem brought to the University of East London’s student money, advice and rights team. “It comes close after problems funding childcare,” says acting manager Debbie Lindsay. “Once they have student loans they lose some of the other benefits they may have been getting. If students are evicted they find it very hard to get back in because they need guarantors, fees and deposits.”

The students’ stories are heartbreaking, says Mulrenan. “They are determined to get a degree to better their lives and make their families proud. They told us ‘I look at my children and I want them to be proud of me’ and ‘my father tells everyone that his daughter is getting a degree’ and ‘I’m staying strong because I want to better myself and set a good example to my children.’”

Nadunga was living in Edmonton Green, north London where her older children, aged 13, nine and seven, were settled in schools. On eviction day the council found them temporary accommodation in Feltham, west London, a 27-mile journey by car or between two and three hours by public transport.

“We went to the council housing office and they told us we were moving to temporary accommodation in Feltham and gave us a map. We had never heard of it,” she says.

It took three trains to get to LMU and the children’s schools. “The house was nowhere near a bus stop so we had to get a taxi to the station. By the end of that week everyone was absolutely exhausted. We had no friends here, we knew no one. We felt isolated and depressed,” she says. But the story has a happy ending because after two months, they found a place to rent back in Edmonton Green and Nadunga is due to graduate next month.

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LMU student Sharon Henry and her daughter Sade were made homeless in Acton, west London, when their landlord sold their flat. “How I passed my first and second year at university I do not know. We had to move three times. Your concentration level drops, you get stressed, you cry,” she says. “I am not quarrelling about university fees. The government is doing me a favour by giving me a student loan and I really appreciate it. In Jamaica I could never afford to go to university,” says Henry, who came to England 20 years ago and is a care worker.

Though she was given notice by her landlord, Ealing council said it could do nothing until the day she was evicted. Sade, 16, says: “We had to get our things out before the bailiffs came and we couldn’t carry everything so we lost lots of stuff. We went back but the door was locked.”

The family was given a room in a hostel in Hillingdon, west London, which meant Sade had to leave home at 6.30am to get to school. After two months they were moved to temporary accommodation in nearby Hayes, after Sade’s school intervened with social services because a male caretaker at the hostel was entering the room uninvited.

Eighteen months later they are still in the former council-owned maisonette that now belongs to a private landlord. The walls and ceilings have large patches of black mould, the roof leaks and there are periodic rat infestations and boiler breakdowns. Despite the housing problems, Sade achieved 13 GCSEs last year and her mother graduates with a BSc honours degree in community development and leadership next month.

LMU has welfare and housing staff but few of the homeless students had approached them. “We can’t solve the housing shortage but we need to give a clear message to students that there is nothing to be embarrassed about,” says Mulrenan. “All universities have to provide information on groups accessing their courses and it would be really useful to have homelessness monitored.”