I don’t know if living on campus is required freshman year, but it is not the rest of the years.
Food on campus is very good. We have an excellent and unmatched dining hall! Sometimes dhall has Indian fare. We also have a vegetarian station that is permanent in dhall, if thats of concern. We also have passport café, which serves international cuisine and has a vegetarian and non-vegetarian special each week. There’s also a sandwich/salad shop called Lou’s, a fast food restaurant called Tyler’s, Freshens (a smoothie/froyo place), 8:15 (basically starbucks), and the Cellar, which is a sit-down pub style restaurant. We also have ETC, which is a convenience store on campus. All of these take dining dollars, which come with your meal plan (around $750 per semester). Campus is also pretty friendly to those with food restrictions. Everything is label, with special designations for gluten-friendly, vegan, vegetarian, and nut-free/contains nuts.
I would have to ask others about the safety and food outside of campus.