Homeownership
About 73.1% of householders 65 and older in Massachusetts own their own home, and many have owned it for some time.20 Among these homeowners, 59% moved in before 2000.21 Over that time, median home values have increased by 82%.22 As home prices have steadily risen, many, if not most, of these homeowners have accumulated substantial wealth in the form of home equity, putting them in a more advantageous position than renters. To no surprise, homeowners have more wealth than renters in both home equity and non-housing assets. This wealth can help older adult homeowners navigate many challenges. Research from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that the typical homeowner aged 65 and over has enough wealth to pay for 42 months of nursing home care and enough non-housing wealth to cover 15 months of care.23 The report continues, “the median older renter, in contrast, cannot afford even one month in a nursing home. Indeed, only 18 percent of renters could pay for nursing home care for more than a year.”
Congregate Care Settings
There are 347 nursing homes within Massachusetts;24 the total number of persons residing in said settings, and for how long, is often changing given admissions for both long-term and short-term related care. In 2023, there were 32,853 nursing home residents in 16 Massachusetts utilizing a total of 11,897,090 resident days, increases of 2.6% and 3% from the prior calendar year. 25 26 Housing instability among older adults can lead to premature nursing home admissions, ultimately driving up the cost of care and often resulting in worse outcomes for well-being. State funding has long prioritized access to community living for older adults, with recent increase in nursing home utilization since the pandemic coming on the heels of a 5.4% decline in utilization of nursing homes and a subsequent increase in nursing facility closures between 2013 and 2017.27 These trends may change with increases in the number of older adult households, which may create challenges given recent findings that nursing facilities across the state are operating near full capacity as a result of system-wide staffing shortages.
Public Housing and Affordable Subsidized Housing
Based on data from Housing Navigator, there are approximately 215,000 rental homes in Massachusetts that are income restricted. Massachusetts provides the most public housing per capita with approximately 30,000 federally supported public housing units in addition to 41,500 state-aided units.28 Older adults make up an outsized percentage of public housing tenants—accounting for 28,721 state-aided units. On the federal side, 64% of the 51,000 residents who live in federally supported public housing are older adults or have a disability.29
| State-Aided Public Housing Demographics 2024 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Characteristic | Family | Elderly |
| Average Income | $29,859 | $21,593 |
| Median Income | $23,960 | $18,600 |
| HoH Employed | 45% | 16% |
| HH Member Disability | 26% | 31% |
| HoH White | 65% | 77% |
| HoH Latino | 35% | 9% |
| Average Family size | 2.8 | 1 |
Public housing experienced a boom in development in 1948 to address the post-war affordable housing crisis for returning veterans as well as another significant development spur from 1960-1985. These efforts were made possible through large-scale investments of public capital. However, the use of common design templates to focus on scale included a myriad of design issues. Though many of these units are still serviceable, the aging of these units has led to deterioration that has greatly outpaced capital investment needed to modernize these units. Furthermore, given the initial intended population of young families, the design templates were not built with the accessibility features often necessary to support aging-in-community. The current capital backlog across the state-aided public housing portfolio is approximately $4 billion, compared to FY25 capital funding of $157M.30 This backlog, in combination with factors including staffing capacity (state public housing subsidy lags federal public housing operating support) across LHAs and challenges of the centralized public housing waitlist implemented in 2019, has resulted in 2,117 (~5%) public housing units being vacant as of November 2025, despite a waitlist of over 200,000 people. Significant efforts have been taken to reduce unit vacancy resulting in a significant decrease from the 8% vacancy rate in 2023.
Affordable Older Adult Housing
Massachusetts has long prioritized affordable housing that specifically supports older adults. Data from the Housing Navigator shows out of the 215,562 affordable rental units in Massachusetts, 81,526 are age-restricted—approximately 38% of all affordable rental units.31 However, the total number of older adult households eligible for affordable rental housing is much higher than the amount of affordable rental units in Massachusetts. There are approximately 461,295 low-income elderly (62+) households and only 18 affordable rental units per 100 households.32 Current challenges to build housing to scale will likely result in an increasing gap in the total number of affordable rental units available to eligible older adult households.
Homelessness
The rise in retired older adult households experiencing cost burden, and anticipated growth amongst this population, will likely have a significant impact on our current homelessness safety net system. At a national level, older adults are the largest growing population amongst those experiencing homelessness33 and homelessness amongst this population is expected to nearly triple by 2030 from its 2017 baseline.34 Massachusetts has the second highest cost of living in the country, 124% of the national average, which poses significant risks for renter households on fixed-incomes.35 In Massachusetts, the growth in older adult homelessness was 17% between 2023 and 2024, compared to 6% nationally.36
Future State and Key Considerations
Addressing the housing needs of older adults will play an outsized role in future housing production given the projected increase in the number of households led by people over 70 as the youngest baby boomers reach their retirement years. The population in Massachusetts grew 7.3% from 2010-2020 and has continued to add residents in the last few years, but there are signs that the population growth in the state will slow considerably over the next decade. The number of births in the state has been declining for decades, falling from more than 80,000 per year in 2001 to only 67,900 in 2024. Conversely, there were about 61,100 deaths in 2024, for a “natural increase” of 6,700 persons.37
As outlined in the chart below, the existing outsized percentage of the baby boomer population will see the earliest members of their age cohort enter retirement age by 2035.
The high number of baby boomers, the youngest of which will turn 70 by 2035, will significantly shape Massachusetts’ future labor pool and economic well-being. Older adults will disproportionately account for anticipated growth in the total number of households with incomes below $35,000.
The Commonwealth is projected under a medium growth scenario to need 222,000 new homes by 2035 to close today’s supply shortfall and meet anticipated housing needs under mid-range population growth scenario. Even if the population doesn’t grow, housing demand is likely to increase. Over the next decade, an estimated 493,000 Millennials and Gen Z residents will be forming households. Meanwhile, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation are projected to free up only 391,000 homes as they move away, pass away, or move to other housing situations.38