A Roar investigation into housing and financial insecurity at King’s College London (KCL) has revealed that four students reported they were street homeless in the academic year 2023-24, up from two students the previous year.
This article was originally published in print on 14 March 2025.
Information revealed to Roar through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests showed that four students were street homeless for the academic year 2023/2024.
Last year’s figures were part of an upwards trend in the rough sleeping rate at KCL, with two reported rough sleepers in 2022/2023 and only one reported rough sleeper in 2019/2020.
This figure includes those students who reported rough sleeping on the streets as well as on campus. It should be noted KCL does not specifically capture data on those living in sheltered accommodation, so those figures are unavailable.
With the government’s definition of homelessness being broader than rough sleeping, it is likely the number of statutory homeless or those threatened by homelessness is higher than these figures.
A spokesperson from KCL said, “Our priority is always ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students and while the numbers are small, any reports of students facing homelessness is cause for concern.”
Soaring Rents Leave Students in London Struggling to Keep Up
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) private rent inflation in London surpassed 11% in the year to December 2024. These increases, alongside other significant cost-of-living pressures, have been felt by the student body across London’s universities.
A report by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), a leading think tank on higher education, revealed that average student rent in London significantly exceeds the maximum student loan.
The study found that weekly rent in London now averages £295 – a rise of 18% over the past two academic years. For students on a 52-week tenancy, this equates to an annual rent of £15,340, surpassing the maximum student maintenance loan of £13,348 by more than £2,000.
To better understand the impact of these financial pressures, Roar conducted a survey of 94 King’s students on their experiences with housing insecurity.
Respondents broadly identified four key challenges:
- Limited housing support beyond first year;
- Restrictive eligibility criteria for the Living Bursary and the King’s Affordable Accommodation Scheme (KAAS);
- Slow communication from the University’s housing team;
- Difficulties navigating London’s competitive housing market.
Our findings show that 47% of respondents spent their entire maintenance loan – or more – on housing, while 69% of all respondents reported spending at least 80% of their maintenance loan on rent.
Many students were compelled to take on further debt, beyond their student loans, with nearly 70% of respondents reporting that they had relied on their overdraft to cover rent.
In 2020, CityMonitor ranked London as the least housing-secure city in England and Wales, partly due to high rent prices. The situation has only worsened in recent years.
It is unsurprising that nearly 60% of students reported some level of difficulty in finding accommodation upon moving to the capital.
One respondent said, “Each time I have secured a property, it has been right on the dawn of the new academic year, which has caused a lot of anxiety and last minute panic.”
Several respondents noted the University’s lack of support when students face the real possibility of becoming homeless. One respondent stated that King’s provided “no help” when they were struggling with housing, offering only a leaflet on homelessness instead.
Overall, 72% of students claimed they did not feel ‘very supported’ by the University and 84% of students said they were concerned with their housing situation.
From Private Rental to Library Floors: One Student’s Struggle for Housing at King’s
Roar spoke with a former undergraduate student at King’s who was forced to take drastic measures to find housing after their landlord “almost doubled” the rent. The individual, who has since secured stable housing, described the experience as deeply unsettling.
They chose to remain anonymous.
The student was unable to find a guarantor to secure a rental agreement due to their socio-economic status, making it especially difficult to find a flat in the private rental sector. This led them to rent a room with a landlord who took “cash-in-hand” and did not require a rent guarantor.
They recalled:
“We didn’t have heating in that place, so in the winter, it would get crazy cold,” they continued, “And I remember I would just wear coats to bed.”
They recalled other tenants were unpredictable and sometimes unsafe to live with, stating, “It was a very strange, a very weirdly unsafe place to live because there were no locks.”
After several months, the student chose to leave their rental and began sleeping in the Maughan Library. They lived in the library for a month and a half before security ultimately removed them.
Roar spoke to a security guard at the Maughan who said that the University has no specific policy to help students who are found rough sleeping and that security is required to remove them.
Despite no official policy, King’s has a standard procedure involving the Money and Housing Advice Team, mental health support and hardship funding.
A KCL spokesperson told Roar:
“If there is a risk of imminent homelessness, the above teams will refer a student to the Welfare team, who are specialists in this area and lead on referrals to Local Authorities, supporting students to navigate these services and access public funds, as well as working with the student to identify other sources of support.”
The student praised the King’s Affordable Accommodation Scheme (KAAS), which provides subsidised housing for students from low-income backgrounds, but criticised the lack of financial support for housing from the University after the first year.
They said, “You’re kind of left on your own”.
They also noted the lack of cheaper accommodation options for low-income students.
Across the 4758 ensuite rooms on offer, the average weekly rent for 2024/25 has been estimated at £293.84 a week.
“It’s crazy you have one building [Wolfson House] for low-income students and then seven buildings for higher-income students.
“Most student accommodation has become much harder to get, and the only student accommodation you can get is crazy expensive.”
The accommodations ran by KCL had an average weekly rent for an ensuite room of £229.84, far less expensive than those supplied by private providers at an average of £326.85 a week.
It should be noted, that our calculations did not include Wolfson House, the cheapest accommodation, as it does not offer an ensuite option. Wolfson House flats have either four or fourteen beds.
KCLSU are consulted on the rents of KCL accommodations in negotiations that occur multiple times a year.
Balancing a Full-Time Job and Full-Time Study
Many who do not receive adequate maintenance loans take on employment in addition to their full-time study to make ends meet. A report by HEPI noted that 55% of students juggled employment with their studies.
According to Student Finance England (SFE), the body responsible for student loans in England, maintenance loans are assessed on a student’s household income in the previous financial year. This can create problems when families face unforeseen circumstances.
Roar spoke to one survey respondent who said they had to work at least three days a week during term time to cover their housing costs. While being entitled to only the lowest maintenance loan, they were unable to rely on financial support from their parents due to a recent redundancy.
As they put it:
“The student loan barely scratches its own arse.”
“At the end of the week, after rent and food etc, there was virtually nothing left. Mentally it was hard to feel like I was missing out so much.”
Many students struggle to maintain their academic performance and social life while juggling a job, leading to exhaustion and burnout. The student explained that while they appeared to be managing reasonably well, “mentally, physically, and emotionally, I felt as though I was sacrificing everything”.
“Working until past midnight and then going to a 9am isn’t normal, nor should it be normalised.”
How Does KCL Support Students?
KCL does offer a range of support packages for students struggling with the cost of living. Two of these are the King’s Living Bursary and the King’s Affordable Accommodation Scheme (KAAS).
Supporting approximately 5000 students a year, the Living Bursary offers a payment ranging from £1,200 to £1,600 (depending on family income) to support with living costs.
KAAS caps the cost of rooms below £169 a week, easing rent costs for students on lower incomes.
Both these support packages are offered to students with family incomes lower than £42,875 a year. Support from KAAS is limited by the supply of allocated rooms, with first-year students and those from vulnerable backgrounds prioritised.
Elements of King’s support packages are made in consultation with the KCLSU such as the number of KAAS rooms, currently the KCLSU are not consulted on the income threshold for eligibility.
Imperial College London offers a living bursary between £1,000 and £5,000 a year and students with a household income below £70,000 are eligible. For the full amount, one requires a household income lower than £16,000 a year.
University College London offers between £1,000 and £3,000 a year, depending on income. Like KCL to be eligible one has to have a household income below £42,875.
Last year, Roar reported the King’s Living Bursary was among the lowest of the top London Universities.
Hardship Expenditure Reached Over £1 Million During 2022/23
Roar can reveal for 2023/24 there were 592 successful applications to KCL’s various hardship funds, which led to over £700,000 worth of support.
This was a 51% decrease in support spending compared to the year before, during which there were 534 successful applications receiving £1,464,670 worth of support.
A spokesperson from KCL explained, “The increase seen in 2022-23 reflects higher than usual applications for hardship funding due to the cost-of-living crisis and the unprecedentedly high inflation of the time.”
In November 2022, the Consumer Price Index inflation peaked at 11.1% which has subsequently fallen.
They continued, “In response, we announced a £3m cost-of-living support package for students, which saw an uplift in hardship funding of £600k and included a one-off £250 uplift to the King’s Living bursary.
“We then saw return to usual pre 2022-23 trajectories the following year.”
In regards to the gradual increase in the support for King’s students, the University noted the changing demographics at King’s with more students attending from lower socio-economic backgrounds than before.
“Over recent years, due to our strong approach to increasing fairer access to King’s and making the University more representative, we have seen an increase in students who are from the least represented and most disadvantaged areas and backgrounds and who are eligible for this financial support, and for priority groups like care leavers this results in multiple bursaries being awarded.”
KCLSU’s Halls for All Campaign
These revelations come as KCLSU prepares to launch their student housing campaign, ‘Halls for All’, led by student officer Haneen Farid.
The aims of the campaign are to secure a review of the current KAAS eligibility threshold, which many of our survey respondents deemed to be too narrow, as well as a review of the process students have to go through for disability support.
The ‘Halls for All’ team confirmed to Roar that KCL agreed to establish an Affordable Housing Working Group with student representation to examine future options for improving student access to housing.
Farid shared her aims and motivations for the campaign:
“The aim behind the Halls for All campaign is that all students at King’s, regardless of their income status, year of study, or disability, should be able to access safe and affordable accommodation. During my time at King’s, I’ve seen peers struggling with challenges that come with subpar private accommodation, and it is students like this who actually inspired the Halls for All campaign.”
Farid argued that the University does not currently offer enough housing support for disabled students. She said:
“When we had the first Halls for All workshop, our disabled students rightly felt that University residences needed to do more to support their needs, and it’s positive that there is an opportunity for this to be heard and addressed in the upcoming KAAS review so that no student is left behind. I’m glad that King’s Estates & Facilities have been highly cooperative with us so far, and I am hopeful that we can continue this spirit into actualising much-needed change.”
She also noted the lack of support for postgraduate students. She said, “Surely the cost of living crisis doesn’t magically disappear once students finish their undergraduate degrees.”
Farid encouraged students to sign KCLSU’s Halls for All petition.
If you have been affected by any of the issues discussed in this article, please contact the university’s Money & Housing Advice Service for further support.
