Maureen Gangaram is tired of putting money into her mother’s apartment.

A tenant in a rent-stabilized unit in Brooklyn, Ms. Gangaram moved into the prewar building full time around 2020, after her mother’s dementia worsened. Her mother, who immigrated to New York from Guyana, has lived there since 1989. At one point, Ms. Gangaram’s father worked as the building’s super.

While the unit contains memories of the Gangarams’ heritage, it has also become ridden with pests, vermin and clutter — nuisances that threaten Ms. Gangaram’s health and her mother’s ability to safely age in place.

“No one should be in this condition,” Ms. Gangaram, 64, said.

She waved a bug-bitten forearm at a bulge in her ceiling — a battle scar from the black, rusty water that leaked through it weeks ago — and shook her head. “They’re not fixing it,” she said, referring to management.

For longtime tenants like Ms. Gangaram and her mother, New York City’s rent-stabilized apartments offer financially feasible housing options for aging in place. But while those units hold some of the city’s lowest rents, not all older adults can afford to stay put because of the risks their living environments pose to their health. And even those in safe conditions may find themselves relinquishing their tenure due to pressure from management companies.

Older adults occupied more than half of the city’s rent-stabilized and rent-controlled units in 2021, according to the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey. The survey found that 21 percent of rent-stabilized apartments had three or more maintenance deficiencies, compared with only 8 percent of unregulated apartments.

Linna Zhu, a senior research associate in the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, said that aging in place was both the most desired and least supported housing option for older adults. The challenges, she continued, were “particularly acute in places like New York City, where many older adults live in rent-stabilized or rent-controlled units.”

Ms. Zhu added that rent-regulated units were commonly found in prewar buildings, which — maintenance issues aside — typically have narrow hallways, steep walk-ups and inaccessible bathrooms. Accessibility features can be limited or dilapidated, if they even exist at all.

“Most apartments weren’t built for aging,” Ms. Zhu said.

Yet, many adults remain in these homes.

A majority of older adults in the city are rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, according to a recent report by the New York City comptroller’s office. Many are also on fixed income, meaning the gap between their monthly wages and monthly rent expenditures may exceed 30 percent.

Three-quarters of New York City older adults received Social Security income in 2023, amounting to a total annual payment of under $16,500. Their monthly earnings, which amount to about $1,375, are lower than the state’s fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which is $2,125.

But price isn’t the sole motivator to stay in place, either. For the Gangarams, who pay less than $1,000 in rent, their apartment connects them to their community.

“Where would we go?” Ms. Gangaram said. “This is the only place we know. We came up from Guyana, we settled here. My mom worked until she was 80 years old. So, why would we want to leave?”

Many older adults who leave rent-stabilized apartments don’t do so by choice, but in response to building sales, major renovation improvements or eviction.

Like the rusty water in Ms. Gangaram’s unit, fear of eviction drips from the ceilings of some prewar buildings, causing tenants to turn corners or lower voices when their super enters the hall.

Marcus Jackson, the manager of advocacy, community and government relations at Encore Community Services, an organization that provides housing, meals and social support to aging New Yorkers, said it was not uncommon for landlords to use intimidation tactics to weed out older adults.

Lauren Carden, the director of California housing advocacy at Justice In Aging, a national organization, urges people not to automatically leave their apartments in response to an eviction notice.

“Just because someone gives you a notice doesn’t mean that they fully complied with the law, and that is required before they can remove you from the unit,” she said.

Mr. Jackson said he has helped older adults navigate housing challenges, such as makeshift letters forged with counterfeit stamps, illegal rent increases or cessation of maintenance. He has seen tenants go years without paint jobs, or dwell among pests, leaky faucets or malfunctioning radiators.

The top barrier adults face to aging in place is “literally just keeping their place,” Mr. Jackson said. It’s “100 times harder to move someone back into a residence after they’ve already left, no matter what the circumstance may be.”

So even when their electrical cords are dangling from the circuits, he continued, it can be in a tenant’s best interest to hang on.

Older renters with extremely low incomes — under 30 percent of the area’s median family income — may not be able to avoid rent burden. Across the country, senior adults make up a third of renters with extremely low incomes, according to a study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. And among seniors registered on New York City Housing Connect, a program designed to help people find affordable housing, 57 percent of them had extremely low incomes, according to a 2024 report by LiveOn NY, an advocacy group.

Older renters who lack additional support may not be pushed into the new housing market so much as out of it. Nationally, older adults are the fastest growing population of homeless people, and in New York City the number of homeless adults over 65 has almost tripled over the last decade.

The trends are worrisome for today’s older adults and future generations, Ms. Carden said.

“The population in general of older adults is growing, so we can see down the road that this problem is going to get worse unless we take action,” she said.

Bridgett Simmons, a staff lawyer at the National Housing Law Project, advises older adults to keep documentation about their apartment, which can include digital records like emails, physical communications like letters or signed leases or audio recordings of meetings or calls — if recorded legally. Such records can help protect people from unjust evictions, particularly if they are fighting their landlord in court.

People may find additional support through initiatives like the city’s adult protective services, housing vouchers or the senior rent freeze program.

Some older adults have successfully aged in place with help from city, state, federal and nonprofit services.

Natalia Shapiro, who has lived in New York City since 1995, moved into an affordable housing unit with the nonprofit SelfHelp in 2012. Ms. Shapiro, who previously lived in a fourth-floor walk-up in Queens, said her current home was incomparable to her last.

“I’m very old and need many changes in this age,” Ms. Shapiro, 87, said. “It is not easy to walk.”

Now, she has the physical assistance of an elevator and the emotional support of a social worker, as well as benefits from Section 8, food stamps and medical insurance.

Hannah Adjei, who moved to New York from Ghana in 2018, lived in various apartments with roommates before becoming a resident in Volunteers of America-Greater New York’s newest supportive senior housing in the Bronx this June.

The building’s accessibility features, like railings and a shower chair, have helped her stay in the city, said Ms. Adjei, 64. “And no cockroaches.”

Demand for these units, however, far exceeds supply. In 2021, when Volunteers of America-Greater New York opened its home in the Bronx, the group received about 26,000 applications for 84 units, said Eric Lee, the organization’s director of public policy. At Encore, the wait list for one of the organization’s buildings averages around 10 years.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Mr. Lee said. “But it speaks volumes to just how desperate aging New Yorkers are to be able to find an affordable place.”