Age-Friendly Resources

An Age-Friendly New Jersey

 New Jersey Age Friendly Logo

New Jersey, like the rest of the United States, will experience a significant demographic shift in its aging population. The U.S. Census Bureau forecasts that residents ages 65 and older could account for nearly 20 percent – more than 1.85 million people – of the State’s total population by 2030. This growth presents an opportunity for communities to implement strategies that can best serve older adults by meeting their health, financial, and social needs.

Age-friendly communities are welcoming and livable for people of all ages. These communities provide affordable and accessible housing and transportation options, meaningful volunteer and social opportunities, easy access to essential services, and safe public spaces.

Over the past five years, New Jersey has taken a number of steps to support the success and well-being of the older adults that call the state home by fostering these communities. Effort include the development and release of the Age-Friendly Blueprint, which outlines actionable ideas and overarching philosophies to improve New Jersey’s communities for their aging populations, and the Age-Friendly Grants Program, which provided providing funding opportunities to 36 local governments and nonprofit organizations to assess, plan, and develop local age-friendly initiatives that support the health and wellbeing of older adults.

Click here to read about each grantee’s accomplishments.

The Age-Friendly Grants program, which ran from March 2025 to July 2026, strengthened the capacity of New Jersey communities by providing funding opportunities to local government and nonprofit organizations to assess, plan, and develop local age-friendly initiatives that support the health and wellbeing of older adults. Two different types of grants programs were pursued under this program: Age-Friendly Project Grants, which provided up to $100,000 to implement a project that addressed one or more recommendation from the Age-Friendly Blueprint, and Age-Friendly Community Grants, which provided up to $70,000 to help build community partnerships, assess community needs, and create action and evaluation plans as part of enrollment in AARP’s Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities. Ten communities and nonprofit organizations worked as Project Grantees, and twenty-six as Community Grantees.

Overall, the Age-Friendly Grants program laid the foundation for the tangible and sustainable systems change to how people grow older in New Jersey and positioned the state as a national leader in the age-friendly field. Over the course of the grant period, the grantees showed unerring commitment to the people they served becoming more informed about the unique needs of older adults in their communities in the process. Regular communication with and feedback from their fellow awardees cemented these organizations into a vibrant community of practice that will endure as a vital resource for other New Jersey municipalities seeking guidance on their own age-friendly initiatives. These efforts were led by Division’s partners at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, who served as a constant source of guidance and expertise, both to the grantees and the public at large via the Age-Friendly Webinars series.

An overview of each initiative’s accomplishments and outcomes can be found at Age-Friendly NJ.

The Rutgers University School of Social Work Hub for Aging Collaboration will publish two evaluation reports of the Age-Friendly Grants Program:

  • The New Jersey Age-Friendly Grants Program: Introducing the 2025-2026 Grantees (November 2025). This baseline report provides an overview of the grant proposal plans and a summary of the program as a whole.
  • The final evaluation report of the Age-Friendly Grants Program will be published in November 2026. This report will assess the program structure and outcomes and provide recommendations to be used by other entities looking to fund similar grant programs.

As part of their grant activities and their participation in the AARP Age-Friendly Network of States and Communities, Age-Friendly Community Grantees performed needs assessments to identify their communities’ specific strengths and opportunities in the field of aging and livability. Other grantees developed action plans to address these needs, developed with the participation of older adults. A select list of needs assessments and action plans can be found below. To see the assessments and action plans from all of New Jersey’s age-friendly counties and municipalities, visit the AARP Livable Communities Map.

To support the sustainability and expansion of age-friendly efforts in New Jersey, DoAS and Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy developed two web tools to easily visualize and compare age- and disability-related data for the state’s counties and municipalities:

  • The Aging and Disability Snapshot provides data about aging and disability in an easy-to-access format. Users can view demographic, income, and disability data for all of New Jersey’s counties and municipalities to better understand the needs of their communities. Comparisons between multiple entities and to the state as a whole are also available.
  • For users looking for more precise information, the Age-Friendly New Jersey Mapping Tool presents a map of New Jersey’s 65-and-older population by census tract. In communities that have done age-friendly work, overlays of resources, services, and amenities—such as libraries, aging services providers, and parks and public spaces—can also be found on the map. Instructions on how to use the tool can also be found on the page.

The Age-Friendly Grants Program held four public webinars to help interested communities and organizations start their own age-friendly initiatives. Recordings and presentation material can be found below:

  • Aging in Place: Supporting Older Adults in Their Homes and Communities: Learn about the ways older adults can continue to thrive at home.
    • Kristine Novakowski of Northern Ocean Habitat for Humanity
    • Emily Greenfield of Rutgers University Hub for Aging Collaboration
  • Easier Living with Technology: Learn how technology can improve the lives of older adults and promote independence.
    • Stephanie Drag of AVP Prevention
    • Lily Arcabascio and Darleen Reveille
    • Marcia LeBeau of JSDD
  • Successful Sustainable Coalition Building: Learn how to build and sustain successful community coalitions by bringing together diverse organizations, stakeholders, and community members around shared goals.
    • Christine Zellers of Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Cape May County.
  • Age-Friendly Public Health: Learn about challenges facing and strategies to improve the health of older adults.
    • Anita Franzione of the Bloustein School of Rutgers University
    • Mara Getz Sheftel of Rutgers Health Center for State Health Policy
    • Megan Wolfe of Trust for America's Health.

The State of New Jersey is committed to supporting older adults through age-friendly supports and programs. On March 2, 2021, Governor Phil Murphy formally expanded these efforts by signing Executive Order 227, creating an Age-Friendly State Advisory Council to work with the Department of Human Services to develop an age-friendly blueprint outlining strategies and practices that municipalities, counties, and business organizations can undertake to create age-friendly communities. The Advisory Council, which convened throughout 2023, comprised of representatives from state and local government, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and community groups.

The Advisory Council held regular meetings, presentations, and two public listening sessions over the course of 18 months to identify challenges to older adults that would form the basis of the blueprint. These challenges include rising housing costs, limited at-home care access, and social isolation.  Several themes also became apparent that, along with the WHO’s age-friendly domains, helped form the Advisory Council’s recommendations, including the increasing use of digital technology; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and economic security.

An Age-Friendly New Jersey requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach. Counties, municipalities, and communities can best make strides in age-friendly growth when assessments are conducted of their particular populations, resources, and needs. Strategies tailored to address community issues make the most difference for the residents who live there.

With support from the Age-Friendly Advisory Council, the Department of Human Services completed and released the Age-Friendly Blueprint in May 2024. 

At the time of the New Jersey Age-Friendly Blueprint’s publication, 23 New Jersey communities are members of AARP’s Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities, an increase of 14 communities since the signing of Executive Order 227.

On November 21, 2025, the Department of Human Services celebrated the last eight years of age-friendly accomplishments in a special virtual webinar, "From Vision to Action: New Jersey's Age-Friendly Journey." The event covered the state's age-friendly journey, from Executive Order 227 to the Age-Friendly Advisory Council and Blueprint; reported on the Age-Friendly Grant Program, including testimony from two grantees themselves; and hosted a panel discussion with AARP, New Jersey Advocates for Aging Well (NJAAW), and the Center for Health Care Strategies about the next steps the state can take to be a better place for all ages. A recording of the webinar can be found at the following URL: https://youtu.be/Q29mXo05Wg0.

What is the Age-Friendly Blueprint?

The New Jersey Age-Friendly Blueprint outlines actionable ideas and overarching philosophies to improve New Jersey’s communities for their aging populations. The growth in the state’s older-adult population, which rose 31.3 percent from 2010 to 2021, is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity to rethink and change how communities in the state function and how residents live. The blueprint presents a number of solutions that, if implemented, can make New Jersey a better place for residents of all ages.

The purpose of the blueprint is to present a framework for New Jersey communities and organizations to establish new efforts to enhance the lives of older New Jerseyans now and in the future. Parties interested in furthering age-friendly efforts in their communities can use the recommendations to implement initiatives at the local level.

Blueprint Contents

The blueprint first offers a brief overview of the concept of “age-friendly,” highlights past efforts in this space, and summarizes the path to gather information and input for its contents. It also offers paths that communities can take to assess their present age-friendliness and create a tailored plan to become age-friendly. The New Jersey Age Profile presents the unique demographic, economic, and linguistic factors that describe the state’s aging population, emphasizing that the differences between areas in the state require age-friendly efforts to take a locally based approach.

The recommendations in the blueprint are split into six sections:

  1. Housing
  2. Health
  3. Transportation
  4. Socialization
  5. Employment
  6. Communication & Outreach

Each section includes an overview of the current state of these issues as they relate to New Jersey’s older-adult population, as well as recommendations that address these issues. Within each section are recommendations from at least one of three cross-cutting issues that were recurring themes across all sections in discussions leading to the blueprint: Technology, Economic Security, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

At the end of each section, readers can find an example of a program they can use as a model or jumping-off point for their own initiatives.

This page provides links to resources and programs that can help communities and organizations plan new age-friendly programs and efforts. In addition to overall background on the age-friendly movement, this page includes links to efforts throughout the state that serve as models of successful age-friendly programs that can be used to inform programs. As in the Age-Friendly Blueprint, resources and program examples are split into six categories: housing, health, transportation, socialization, employment, and communication and outreach.

General Age-Friendly Planning Resources

Housing

Health

Transportation

Socialization

Employment

Communication & Outreach