Opinion: Mamdani’s Affordability Agenda Can Serve Older Adults, Too

“Mayor Mamdani has established that New Yorkers are hungry for a city that is affordable. Although a younger generation swept him to victory, it may be older adults who are looking to his affordability agenda to ensure their well-earned independence and dignity.”

When pundits discuss new Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s affordability policies, they talk about the benefits to his base of young supporters. They imagine how the call for cheaper groceries and rent freezes will help 20- and 30-somethings navigating early adulthood and parenthood.

But Mamdani’s core message on housing and food prices applies just as much to older New Yorkers, and his affordability agenda can deliver for them, too. They cared for us, now it’s our turn to care for them.

Nearly 1.5 million older adults call New York City home. Among those over age 70, nearly three in five reported no stable source of retirement income, and a similar share of older tenants are rent-burdened. And when grocery and housing prices rise, that poses a threat to their health and safety.

The urgent solution is to expand options for affordable homes and low- and no-cost nutrition.

On housing, supply is badly outstripped by demand. A 2024 report pegged the total number of adults 60-plus with pending applications for affordable housing at a head-spinning 520,000. Though the city has made promising strides to build more affordable units for older adults, we’re miles short of where we need to be.

That’s because we aren’t using the tools at our disposal. Take Senior Affordable Rental Apartments (SARA), a promising program to fund construction of 100 percent affordable housing for lower-income New Yorkers 62 years or older. Even though the former mayoral administration touted its unprecedented record on affordable housing, this initiative remains badly underresourced, creating just 7,300 new homes since 2014. Last year, the administration secured just 336 of these units.

We must scale up, and nonprofit organizations can help us get there. In the past two years at Selfhelp Community Services, we have delivered or broken ground on almost 500 deeply affordable homes for older adults. These projects were the product of close collaboration between a nonprofit, city and state government, and private developers.

To build out our supply of affordable homes for older adults, the new mayoral administration must pursue more public-private partnerships, as well as cement a persistent, significant investment in SARA.

That’s only half of the equation. We must also subsidize demand, as there is no incentive for developers to build and maintain housing without tenants who can afford rent. Mayor Mamdani should expand older adults’ access to housing vouchers to fill vacancies and reduce turnover.

What’s more, the mayor’s trademark rent freeze can easily include older adults. We already have a program on the books: the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE). The Department of Housing Preservation and Development should coordinate with case managers to ensure residents eligible for the exemption apply for and receive it. With greater numbers of older tenants using the program, developers can bank on more consistent rent payments. It’s a win-win situation.

But a roof over one’s head won’t mean much without food at the table. A 2023 report found that 200,000 New Yorkers over age 60 were food insecure; that is nearly double the number from the mid-2000’s. Given the volume of people asking for our support, we recognize the landscape of hunger insecurity has become much worse, and there is no end in sight.

Nonprofits are vital to providing accessible nutrition services for older adults. At Selfhelp, our five Older Adult Centers (OACs), funded by the city’s NYC Aging, offer free hot meals, removing a significant cost burden for their more than 8,000 members. And 60 percent of those receiving home-delivered meals, which are crucial for those with limited mobility, reported food insecurity. But funding pales in comparison to the demand. We encourage Mayor Mamdani to invest in OACs and home-delivered meals to meet the demand across the city.

The mayor has an opportunity to work with the Council to put food on plates by prioritizing these services in the budget.

Mayor Mamdani has established that New Yorkers are hungry for a city that is affordable. Although a younger generation swept him to victory, it may be older adults who are looking to his affordability agenda to ensure their well-earned independence and dignity. Nonprofits like Selfhelp can play a key role in delivering on that promise.

Stuart C. Kaplan is the CEO of Selfhelp Community Services.