The Adams administration is expanding its program to deliver free meals to older adults at home, citing a post-pandemic rise in isolation and decreased mobility among the city’s oldest New Yorkers.

In addition to weekday meals, city-funded home meal services will include deliveries on holidays and require halal options starting in July, according to city officials.

The expanded services come as a new report by the Robin Hood Foundation found 1 in 4 adults over the age of 65 experienced poverty in 2022, a slight rise from the previous year. During a City Council hearing on Tuesday, councilmembers also underscored the aging crisis facing immigrant communities, who make up the majority of the city's older adult population and often lack safety nets once they’re unable to work.

“What makes New York City affordable and economical is the ability to work,” said Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, commissioner for the city's Department for the Aging. “It is a lifelong experience of underemployment, poor pay, that then you encounter this in your old age, which is why so many older adults are in poverty."

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