<p>The present study examined the relationships between poverty-related stress, coping humor, hopelessness, and mental health problems among university students. It was hypothesized that poverty-related stress and coping humor would be associated with hopelessness, which in turn would mediate their relationships with mental health. The sample comprised 373 Turkish university students (272 women and 101 men). The data were collected online using the Poverty Perception Scale, Poverty-Related Stress Scale, Coping Humor Scale, Beck Hopelessness Scale, and Brief Symptom Inventory. The Poverty-Related Stress Scale, developed for the present study, had high internal consistency, acceptable fit for a unidimensional structure, and convergent validity through a positive correlation with perceived poverty. Simultaneous mediation analysis using PROCESS Macro indicated that the direct effects explained 46.21% of the variance in mental health. Hopelessness partially mediated the relationship between poverty-related stress and mental health problems, whereas full mediation was observed for the relationship between coping humor and mental health. The mediating effect of hopelessness was stronger for poverty-related stress (<i>R</i>^<i>2</i> = .03) than for coping humor (<i>R</i>^<i>2</i> = .01). Results were discussed in relation to implications for mental health practice, limitations concerning methodology, and future research directions.</p>