Children’s life outcomes, including their success in school, are closely aligned with their housing and neighborhood conditions. This insight has led practitioners and policymakers to emphasize the role of place as they design new interventions, from the Harlem Children’s Zone to HUD’s Choice Neighborhoo

Caleb Torres lost seven pounds his freshman year of college — and not because he didn’t like the food in the dining hall. A first-generation college student, barely covering tuition, Torres ran out of grocery money halfway through the year and began skipping meals as a result.

He’d stretch a can of SpaghettiOs over an entire day. Or he’d scout George Washington University campus for events that promised free lunch or snacks. Torres told no one what he was going through, least of all his single mom.

“She had enough things to worry about,” he said.

Last fall, students at two of the nation’s premier historically black colleges, Spelman and Morehouse, went on a hunger strike. They weren’t protesting policymakers in Washington. They were pressuring their schools to allow students to donate unused meal plan vouchers to those on campus who needed them.