Older adults in Massachusetts are experiencing food insecurity at alarming rates.
According to a report released last month by the Greater Boston Food Bank, food insecurity among adults 60 and older rose from 18% in 2023 to 29% in 2025. Yet during this same period, funding for the state’s Senior Nutrition Program, which includes home-delivered meals for older adults who have difficulty preparing meals independently, commonly known as Meals on Wheels, grew by less than 5%, all while the older adult population is growing at a rapid pace.
In Massachusetts, 45% of those receiving home-delivered meals from the Senior Nutrition Program have relied on these meals for three years or longer, and one-third of program clients say they would experience food insecurity without this support.
Older adults experiencing food insecurity are more likely to face broader financial hardship, including difficulty affording medications and routine medical care. This is detrimental for people at any age, but particularly harmful and potentially fatal for older adults who tend to have a higher incidence of comorbidities.
Food-insecure older adults are also more than twice as likely to visit an emergency department or require hospitalization or a costly nursing home admission. This means that underinvesting in nutrition programs for older adults simply causes a shifting of costs to the most expensive health care settings.
Some older adults with chronic diseases are eligible for a highly customized intervention called medically tailored meals, which are overseen by a nutritionist to ensure that they are responsive to a patient’s medical needs. The data is overwhelming that medically tailored meals lower health care costs.
There is more to home-delivered meals for older adults than simply better health and lower downstream health care costs.
The regularly delivered meals serve as an essential wellness check for older adults. Meal delivery staff assess the wellness of the older adults to whom they deliver food, and, in at least one case, even saved a life. The social interaction that occurs on these visits is highly beneficial for people who are often socially isolated. Studies suggest that a smile and a greeting can reduce loneliness and improve health.
Local Aging Services Access Points, or ASAPs, appreciate Sen. Julian Cyr’s filing of a budget amendment that would add $1 million in much-needed FY27 funding for the program and help to address a projected statewide funding shortfall of approximately $5.8 million. The cost of providing these meals – which has been affected by everything from tariffs to surging fuel costs – has increased on average by 12.6%. Some vendor contracts have risen by as much as 30%.
A deficit that is unfunded will result in difficult decisions, including a loss of food assistance for some older adults.
Massachusetts is rightfully proud of its universal school meals program, which will receive a proposed $18 million increase in the coming year. The aging services network in Massachusetts is simply seeking adequate funding for all older adults who need a home-delivered meal and a safety check.
A well-funded Senior Nutrition Program ensures that older adults do not suffer from hunger and malnutrition, conditions that lead to a cascade of other health programs. It keeps older adults living in their communities, staying connected to those communities and out of costly institutional settings.
The FY27 state budget will be finalized by the end of June, when the new fiscal year begins. An increase in the Senior Nutrition Program’s budget will ensure that ASAPs are not forced to make difficult decisions about which older adults to serve.
Our parents and grandparents worked hard and made countless sacrifices so that we would not have to struggle to make ends meet. It is incumbent on all of us to make sure that they have enough to eat.
Lisa Kippax is executive director of Elder Services of Worcester Area. Betsey Crimmins is executive director of Mass Aging Access.
