Ocean County has become the first governmental body in New Jersey to adopt a comprehensive plan on population aging, a fitting and crucial achievement for a county that is home to the state’s largest concentration of retirement communities.
The Age-Friendly Ocean County Multisector Plan for Aging – officially launched at an event in Toms River on June 23 – is the product of a collaboration among the Jersey Shore county’s elected officials, senior services staff, and partners at Rutgers University.
Ocean County joined the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities in 2023 and was selected as a recipient of the New Jersey Age-Friendly Grants Program in 2025.
As it embarked on its age-friendly work, Ocean County’s Board of Commissioners engaged Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County to work with its County Office of Senior Services. More than 8,000 residents and stakeholders provided input on the plan through surveys, focus groups, interviews, public forums, and town hall meetings aided by an innovative and fruitful collaboration between county leaders: Age-Friendly Ocean County, the Ocean County Health Department’s Partnership for a Healthier Ocean County, and the county’s nonprofit hospital systems—Hackensack Meridian Health, RWJBarnabas Health, and Deborah Heart and Lung Center.
Initially, the aim was to develop a five-year age-friendly action plan, a requirement of joining the AARP network. But leaders expanded the effort to include the loftier goal of establishing a Multisector Plan for Aging (MPA). An MPA is a comprehensive planning tool that engages all county departments and private-sector entities to improve policies, systems, services, and the built environment that affect residents’ ability to live safely, independently, and with dignity in their homes and communities throughout the lifespan.
“For the past 18 months we have worked closely with local and state leaders, Rutgers Cooperative Extension, our advisory council, county departments, community partners, health care providers, municipalities – and probably the most important – we worked with the residents, to assess the needs of our community and plan for the future,” said Maria La Face, director of the Ocean County Office of Senior Services, at the June 23 kick-off event.
The launch of the MPA is significant not just because it’s the first of its kind in New Jersey, La Face said, but “because of who we are as a county.”
Ocean County’s population is significantly older than both state and national averages, and it’s also home to 93 age-restricted retirement communities, the most of any county in the state.
“Let’s face it, we are the retirement hub of New Jersey,” said La Face, noting that Ocean County has more than 200,000 residents over the age of 60 as well as the state’s largest population of people over 80, who are often called “super-seniors.”
“These numbers are only expected to grow as 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 each day,” she added. “This Multisector Plan for Aging is intended to serve as a roadmap to guide us as we plan for a very historic shift in demographics.”
The adoption of Ocean County’s MPA is an important milestone for New Jersey and its efforts toward becoming a more age-friendly state, said Dr. Cathy Rowe, executive director of New Jersey Advocates for Aging Well.
“Ocean County’s efforts will serve as a guide for other communities and counties across the state,” Rowe said. “It will also be a model for how we move forward with a state-level MPA.”
Rowe’s organization leads a campaign called Lifelong Strong New Jersey, which advocates for the passage of Assembly Bill 5140, legislation that would establish a task force to begin drafting a statewide MPA.
“It’s gratifying to see Ocean County’s leaders taking this proactive step to ensuring a better future for all of their residents,” Rowe said. “But to achieve complete progress at the local level, it is essential the state move forward with its own MPA to break down the siloed nature of government departments and foster the top-down collaborations needed to make our public and private-sector systems better meet the needs of our aging population.”
Ocean County’s MPA lays out recommendations, implementation opportunities or strategies, and potential partners for six key focus areas: housing, health care, transportation, food insecurity, caregiving, and social connection.
Some next steps have already been identified, said Dr. Kathleen Cullinen, family and community health sciences educator with Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County and the principal investigator of Age-Friendly Ocean County.
A “Step Up for Our Seniors” campaign is being launched to encourage multisector implementation. There are also preliminary plans to launch Dementia-Friendly and Veteran-Friendly initiatives. Perhaps the biggest innovation is the creation of a new AI-powered text line for older adults, adults with disabilities, and caregivers residing in Ocean County to get immediate answers to questions about region-specific services, resources, and age-related information.
The text line, to be piloted throughout the summer, is being developed in partnership with the tech company Bridge Social alongside colleagues at the Rutgers Hub for Aging Collaboration. The text line’s official launch is planned for this fall.
“We are excited to begin the next phase of this work by transitioning from planning to implementation,” Cullinen said. “Over the coming months, our partners will work together to prioritize and develop the work group action plans with clear and achievable objectives needed to translate the Multisector Plan for Aging into meaningful improvements for older adults, adults with disabilities, and caregivers throughout Ocean County.”
To read the Ocean County Multisector Plan for Aging, click here.
To learn more about Age-Friendly Ocean County, click here.
To view a video recording of the June 23 launch event, click here.