Frigid temperatures did not stop the likes of 88-year-old Annie Stevenson-King from rallying outside City Hall last Thursday, Jan. 23, against cutting $108 million from the NYC Department for the Aging (DFTA) budget.
“I’m out here freezing in this cold weather at age 88 because the budgets are being cut and the seniors are not getting their due,” said Stevenson-King, who volunteers for AARP. “We voted for them, we put them in office, [and] we support them, we’re always there for them, but yet, they keep cutting the budget and leaving us in the cold. Aging services are important because as we get older, we have many problems: We need healthcare [and] we need a place to live. The rents are outrageous.”
According to the State Comptroller, in a report released earlier this month, more seniors live in New York City now than ever before. In particular, an influx of nonwhite elders fueled this population growth from 2000 to 2023. Many were immigrants. Over that time, the number of Black New Yorkers ages 65 and older grew by 68%. They made up 22.2% of the city’s senior population in 2023.
Related: 2026 FY City & State Budget Recap
“That has implications for the city’s economy, and it also has implications for what the city should be spending on,” said State Deputy Comptroller Rahul Jain. “Given the fact that there’s been some substantial growth in this group, it was interesting to us that it was the only age group that had grown during the pandemic.”
The report was a springboard for Thursday’s rally, which drew more than 50 organizations led by nonprofit LiveOn in a campaign called Age Strong NYC. The advocates called for more investments in programs like Senior Affordable Rental Apartments and the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption, since the comptroller found that 61% of older tenants spent more than 30% of their income on rent — the threshold for being “cost-burdened.” Roughly half of the city’s 65 and older households rented in 2023, more than double the national rate of 21.5%.
Older homeowners faced similar challenges, with 39.5% spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs. Advocates say rental assistance and rent freezes would make it better for seniors to age-in-place.
Back in 2023, 21.5% of the city’s senior population lived in poverty, even as more New Yorkers remained in the workforce around retirement age. Many face low wages — the median household income for seniors was roughly $30,000 lower than the city’s general median household income in 2023 (for comparison, the nationwide gap was just around $11,000). Among seniors living in poverty, just 31% said they were in good health back in 2019.
However, not all older New Yorkers work solely because of financial pressure. Jain said the pandemic paradoxically increased employment among seniors, despite fears of COVID-19 transmission, due to an increase in remote work.
Beyond housing, the advocates also called for further senior resources regarding nutrition and community centers.
“We need to have Meals on Wheels that are not just one meal a day, [but] five days a week, to older people,” said LiveOn executive director Allison Nickerson. “We need to have caregiving support, elder abuse support … and we need our community spaces to be available for people so that they can plug in and get them and thrive in their later life.”
Organizers estimated around $2.3 billion is needed to fund such services properly, an ambitious task given the figure rounds out to more than four times DFTA’s funding. Proponents are also often on the backfoot, recently fighting to restore cuts in the last fiscal budget that bankrolled food programs for homebound seniors.
Yet, they say the cost is a drop in the bucket compared to the percentage of New Yorkers who now or will soon need such services. During the rally, Councilmember Crystal Hudson, who chairs the Committee on Aging, slammed the Adams administration for not prioritizing senior services.
“Every budget season, we see cuts to NYC Aging funding — a department that represents less than one-half of 1% of the city’s $112 billion budget,” said Hudson. “This chronic underfunding sends a clear and unacceptable message that our older adults are not a priority, but we know that older adults are the future … passing legislation is only the first step, and everybody here knows we’ve launched our Age in Place 2.0 package [and] we’ve passed a majority of the bills in that package, but to see the programs our older adults definitely need come to life, we must truly fund citywide aging services.”
To be clear, the spiking older adult population is not catching the city off-guard, and such services are actually designed to save the city money. The Building Community Care for an Age-Inclusive City blueprint stemmed from Bill de Blasio’s final year as mayor. The five-year plan promoted an increase of senior resources to keep New Yorkers aging in place, because a combination of meals, in-home services, and transport would cost $122,000 less than a nursing home stay each year, per elder.
Jain said that while the State Comptroller’s Office has not analyzed LiveOn’s proposal and is not currently advocating for the exact $2.3 billion in DFTA funding, the demand for the agency’s services is needed and any decline “would be unfortunate.”
According to a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, the Mayor’s Office of Budget Management will monitor DFTA funding; the agency faces major budget cliffs due to expiring stimulus funds and tapering state grant money in Fiscal Year 2026.
“Over the past two years, this administration has been working with all city agencies, including NYC Aging, to fund programs that face cliffs related to expiring federal stimulus,” added NYC Aging Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez by email. “The administration just released the Preliminary Budget, so we have a long way to go until the budget is finalized. We will keep working through the ongoing budget process to provide older New Yorkers with the services and supports they need.”
With recent news of a federal aid pause under the new Trump administration, Jain said Aging programming still largely relies on city money, but the impact on state Medicaid programs will be felt.
“Other than the fact that the city used federal pandemic funding to fund some of this stuff, I don’t think the city ever necessarily was going to be able to rely on federal [or] state funding for some of the stuff that they’re doing,” said Jain. “It’s not a huge impact on them from that perspective. There are huge implications for Medicare changes and Medicaid changes. This is a group that’s seen Medicaid enrollment rise.
“Already, a lot of folks already have Medicare, but it’s not covering certain things. That’s why you apply for Medicaid, right? And that suggests that some of these households are having a more difficult time. Changes to that program in particular would have a real impact on that segment of older adults who do rely on Medicaid.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.