Wake Forest adopts age-friendly action plan after 1,200-response survey

The Wake Forest Board of Commissioners adopted the town’s Age-Friendly Community Strategic Action Plan at its September 15, 2026 meeting at Town Hall. The vote was unanimous, according to the town’s plan page.

The plan is the second step in a five-year cycle that began when Wake Forest was accepted into the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities in June 2024. The town’s July 19, 2024 announcement said Wake Forest joined 20 other North Carolina municipalities already in the network, which gives members technical assistance and a structure for improvements. A committee was seated in September 2024, and a needs-assessment survey ran from September 2024 through February 2025. The board saw a draft of the plan at its August 4, 2026 work session before the September 15 vote, which was item 8.B on the regular agenda.

What 1,200 residents told the town

The survey drew more than 1,200 responses on paper and online, a number the plan calls record-breaking for a town survey. About 90 percent of respondents lived in Wake Forest, and the plan notes the sample skewed whiter and more educated than the town as a whole: 85.2 percent of respondents were white, against a Census estimate of 67.4 percent for the town.

The needs-assessment report, written by committee member Ann Welton, and the adopted plan report these findings:

• Transportation scored lowest of any area, with 33 percent satisfied with public transit and 24 percent satisfied with pedestrian and bike access and safety.
• Housing drew the highest rate of dissatisfaction among livability issues, driven by affordability.
• Parks and outdoor spaces scored highest, with satisfaction between 86 and 90 percent.
• Eighty percent of respondents age 75 and older want to stay in their current home, as do 60 percent of those 55 to 64.
• About 67 percent were satisfied with health care practitioners, but fewer were satisfied with mental health and caregiver services.
• Twenty-two percent of respondents said they are unpaid caregivers.
• About 60 percent said they were unsure what volunteer and civic options exist in town.

Communication was a strength, with more than 79 percent of respondents 55 and older saying they can easily find community information. The committee followed the survey with focus groups on tweens and teens, senior services, and caregiver support.

Six domains and more than 50 action items

The AARP framework uses eight “domains of livability.” The committee combined three of them into a single social engagement domain, leaving six: communication and information, health services and community support, social engagement, transportation, outdoor spaces and public buildings, and housing. Each action item carries a timeline of short-term, mid-term, long-term or ongoing.

The plan names its 2026 and 2027 priorities. The short-term list is:

• Publish a Senior Services and Caregiver Resource Guide, in print and online, in English and Spanish, and back it with wallet cards and magnets carrying QR codes.
• Expand home-modification programs so residents can age in place, including pursuing state and federal grants for the town’s Housing Rehabilitation Program.
• Expand intergenerational events and programs.
• Explore safe places for tweens and teens ages 10 to 15 to socialize, including a possible “Teen Union Building” and quarterly dances.

Three longer-term items are listed as high impact: an integrated community center for senior and intergenerational programs, better walking and biking access to community amenities, and a larger and more varied stock of age-friendly housing. The plan calls for a feasibility study of an intergenerational center modeled on one in Winston-Salem, and for developing the Wright property next to the Wake Forest Center for Active Aging as a park with walking trails. It also lists a multi-purpose “Ageless Sports Complex” near Joyner Park as a long-term goal.

Several items tie into work the town already does. Under transportation, the plan calls for pedestrian and bike audits, additions to the Unified Development Ordinance on traffic calming and sidewalk standards, rapid flashing beacons at crossings downtown and near schools, and monitoring of Go Wake Forest to track ADA vehicle availability. It proposes a volunteer driver network for medical appointments. Under housing, it asks the town to reduce barriers to accessory dwelling units, build a relationship with a community land trust, and review any project receiving low-income housing tax credits or Community Development Block Grant money for universal design.

Health items include mobile and pop-up screening clinics for low-income and older residents, a “Path to Wellness” program covering diabetes, heart health, Parkinson’s and fall prevention, and promotion of the GUIDE program, which the plan says provides up to $2,500 a year for dementia caregiver respite. The plan also asks the town to evaluate seating in parks and downtown and install benches with backs and armrests.

Who wrote it and what happens next

The plan credits eight months of work by the Age-Friendly Community Committee, whose members include Mayor Vivian Jones, Commissioner Faith Cross and town staff members Kari Grace and Zoe Taylor. It singles out Pat Scruggs, who gathered and analyzed the survey data and ran the strategic planning sessions.

Under the AARP cycle, 2027 through 2029 are implementation years, with progress tracking and a report to AARP in year five. Much of the work runs through the Wake Forest Center for Active Aging at 235 E. Holding Ave., which the town took over from Resources for Seniors on July 1, 2025 and renamed from the Northern Wake Senior Center. The center is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 919-554-4111, and the town’s 2025-2030 Capital Improvement Plan includes a second senior center.

The plan frames the work against state and national numbers. By 2030, one in five people in the United States will be 65 or older, and by 2034 adults 65 and older will outnumber children 18 and under, according to the town’s age-friendly page. North Carolina’s population age 65 and older is projected to grow from 1.9 million to 2.8 million by 2042.