Teaneck Getting Older

Teaneck’s empty-nest population grew sharply this millennium.
Nearly 4,700 households - or about 35 percent of the township’s total - have at least one person over age 65, and nearly a third of those senior-citizen householders live alone, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
The census bureau’s 2012-2016 American Community Survey offers a lot of important clues to how the needs of township residents might change in the next few decades.

• The total Teaneck population was 40,668, an increase of only 3.5 percent since 2000.
• The township grayed at a much faster rate in that same time period, with the over-65 population increasing by nearly 23 percent to 6,845, and the over 85-population increasing 56.2 percent to 1,290.
• An estimated 21 percent of Teaneck residents over age 60 has a disability.
• About 38 percent of residents over 60 are in the labor force.
• Slightly more than 3 percent of them are responsible for their minor grandchildren.
• Nearly 4 percent have incomes below the poverty line.
• Roughly 40 percent of all homeowners and more than half of all renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs.

Numbers like that pose a challenging question: How can a suburb largely built to accommodate families with small children adapt for an older generation that wants to live independently in their homes and communities for far longer than previous generations did?
Age-Friendly Teaneck is working to try to answer some of those questions.
“It’s important for us to learn as much as we can about Teaneck’s older adult population,” said Jackie Kates, project coordinator for Age-Friendly Teaneck. “Not just about their total numbers, but also about how they are living their lives and the struggles some face.”