The most recent community needs assessment conducted by Bay Aging shows a continuing trend of residents on the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck who are older than the average in the rest of the state and across the U.S., as well as a continuing lack of affordable housing across the agency’s service area.

Bay Aging is a nonprofit agency that offers transportation, housing, community living, and health services programs in the 10 counties of the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck.

The survey also yielded new information, such as “a remarkably positive view of law enforcement in the community,” but also “a concerning decline in satisfaction with quality of life, particularly among minority populations.”

Four of Virginia’s five oldest counties by median age are located in Bay Aging’s service area, said the report. Over 34 percent of the region’s population is age 60 or older, compared to 22.6 percent for Virginia as a whole and 23.3 percent for the nation. There are also fewer households with children and more households that include older adults. People aged 65 or older who live alone comprise nearly 17 percent of households in the region.

The area is less racially diverse than Virginia as a whole and is growing more slowly, said the report, but there is “considerable variation in composition and growth rates among the 10 counties.” Educational attainment is low, with adults holding bachelor’s and graduate degrees at lower rates; median household income across all 10 counties lower than that of Virginia as a whole; and poverty in half of the counties higher than the state rate.

In terms of housing, renters in six of the counties of the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck and homeowners in four of them are more cost-burdened than the rest of the state, said the report. (Cost-burdened means that housing costs represent 30 percent or more of household income.) While the percentage of mobile homes in the area is high, only a small proportion of households rent, and there are few multi-unit residential structures.

The health of area residents is mediocre, as scored by the University of Wisconsin’s County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, said the report, with counties with greater racial diversity tending to have lower scores. While life expectancy across Virginia is an average of 77.6 years, on the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck, it ranges from 73 to 76.4 years.

Twenty-nine percent of those who responded to the survey self-identify as a caregiver for an older adult or person with disabilities or chronic conditions, said the report.

In Gloucester

Gloucester is the most densely-populated county in Bay Aging’s 10-county service area, said the report, and it is the second-youngest locality in the region, with a median age of 44.6 years. It also has the largest median household size, with 2.58 people per household.

The second least diverse county, Gloucester’s population is 84 percent white. Educational attainment for the county is “about average” for the region in terms of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher, but it has the second highest proportion of adults with an associate degree.

Incomes in Gloucester are the second highest in the 10-county region and unemployment is the second lowest, while poverty is the lowest. The county showed a substantial decline from 2021 to 2024 in the proportion of residents who find it difficult to pay their bills.

The financial challenges Gloucester faces are a gender pay gap that exceeds $15,000 annually for full-time workers, housing costs that are the second highest in the region, and renters who are cost-burdened at a rate above the regional rate.

While Gloucester residents reported the second-highest rates of satisfaction with quality of life, said the report, that rate is 11.3 percentage points lower than the previous report.

In Mathews

Mathews is the fifth-oldest county in Virginia, said the report, with 40.5 percent of its residents aged 60 or older and 15.6 percent under age 18. Disability rates for children aged 5-17 and adults aged 18-34 are more than double the regional average.

The population in Mathews is expected to decline by 22 percent between 2000 and 2050, to fewer than 7,200 residents, said the report. It is the least racially diverse county in the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck, with 86.7 percent of the population white and 8.4 percent African American. However, at 2.8 percent, it has the second largest proportion of residents who identify as having some American Indian or Alaska Native heritage.

Thirty percent of adults in Mathews have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 25.8 percent across the 10 counties, said the report, and a disproportionate number of the population works in the construction industry. Median household income is third highest in the area, the poverty rate is second lowest, and Mathews has the lowest proportion of households with income below $10,000, said the report. However, the gender pay gap for full-time workers is nearly $15,000, and the unemployment rate is more than a percentage point higher than the regional average.

Mathews housing stock is the second oldest in the region, said the report, with a median year built of 1980 for owner-occupied units and 1973 for renter-occupied units.

Only 16.4 percent of homeowners in Mathews are cost-burdened, the second lowest in the area, said the report, while 27.1 percent of renters are cost-burdened, which is the third highest in the region. More than 1,700 of Mathews County’s 5,486 housing units are vacant, said the report, primarily for seasonal and recreational use.

Nearly 25 percent of households in Mathews consist of a person age 65 or older who lives alone, said the report.

The full 123-page report is available online at https://bayaging.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Bay-Aging-Community-Needs-Assessment-2025.pdf.