The Be Our Guarantor campaign, launched today (6 March), is asking universities to act as rent guarantors for care leavers and estranged students, or work with a third party provider to offer a guarantor service.
When searching for accommodation during their studies, students who are care leavers or estranged from their families often struggle to find a suitable rent guarantor, which has become a standard ask from private landlords housing students.
Without a guarantor, students can be asked to pay six to 12 months of rent in advance to secure accommodation.
Fiona Ellison, chief executive of the Unite Foundation told CYP Now that when faced with the sudden and often unexpected ask of providing a rent guarantor, care experienced and estranged students may be unable to source accommodation and drop out of university as a result.
“It’s something that students often don’t know about. If you’re estranged, you’re then forced to share that status with the friends you’re planning on living with, which can be really detrimental”, she said.
Although local authorities have a duty of care as the statutory parents of care leavers, meaning they ought to act as a rent guarantor for the young person, Ellison said this does not always happen in practice. There is also no current support from local authorities for estranged students.
The Be Our Guarantor campaign asks universities to step in and offer an accessible rent guarantor service, either as an institution or through a third-party provider, in order to “level a very uneven playing field” Ellison explained, so that students who don’t have a family member to ask are not unfairly disadvantaged when seeking accommodation.
“It may seem like a tiny, trivial thing, but it can have massive ramifications on a student’s ability to stay at university, because it gives them somewhere safe to live”, Ellison said.
Cardiff University is one institution which currently provides a guarantor service that is offered to all students, which Ellison notes avoids stigmatising those who are care experienced or estranged.
The campaign also calls for these services to be easily accessible and promoted as part of a university’s communications and outreach, with Ellison saying it needs to be “front and centre of a university’s support for care leavers and estranged students”.
Though some universities do provide a rent guarantor service, in a survey of English university websites last year, the Unite Foundation found that 60 per cent did not have any information about provision accessible online.
The Unite Foundation will be hosting a series of case studies on its website, detailing the impact this has on students, and the offers currently available from some universities. It will also host a webinar later this month, to provide practical advice to practitioners who wish to set up a guarantor service in their institution.
Courtney, a young person who was estranged from her parents prior to starting university, said: “The campaign comes directly from students that have had to face those issues. We are asking all universities to put plans in place to provide rent guarantors for care experienced or estranged students. This will help ease their transition into university life or help an existing student through the hardships of a family breakdown.
“When I applied for university I was estranged and homeless. Finding a way around needing a guarantor was the difference between being able to attend university or not, so it warms my heart that this campaign might alleviate this issue for others.”
Read more about Courtney’s story here.
