Rebecca Seawright Vows to Serve Seniors As New State Assembly Aging Chair

Upper East Side State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright became the chair of that body’s Aging Committee last month, a role that will give her significant influence over legislation affecting New York’s sizable senior citizen population.

In an interview with Straus Media, Seawright said that her elevation to the position by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie made particular sense from a local standpoint. Indeed, a widely referenced City Comptroller report from 2017 revealed that the Upper East Side had roughly 43,000 senior citizen residents. According to Seawright, that dynamic still holds true today, as she said that her district contains the “largest concentration of senior citizens in Manhattan.”

“This is a perfect committee for me, and one that I’m really excited to jump in and chair,” she said. “One of my my top priorities is going to be for senior citizens to age in place, and I’ve introduced legislation to create a task force to study this issue.”

As of Feb 4., that legislation was being considered by a State Assembly committee. According to a summary of the bill, the “aging in place” task force would focus on: infrastructure and transportation improvements, zoning changes to facilitate home care, enhanced delivery options and nutrition programs, improved fraud and abuse protections, expansion of home medical-care options, and tax and private insurance incentives.

Seawright pointed out that Gov. Kathy Hochul has included $45 million pertaining to “in-home and community-based services” as part of her budget for the 2026 fiscal year, which is currently being negotiated. “If that gets taken out of our draft executive budget for some reason, then I’ve got [the task force] legislation already in the hopper to create these services,” she said.

Seawright also referenced Hochul’s proposed $6.19 million increase for the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, which provides resources for those living in long-term-care facilities. She said that seniors have told her that the program “is terribly underfunded,” which she wants to change.

Seawright noted that her own mother is 91 years old and lives in an independent living facility, which will influence how she goes about her work on the Assembly committee: “I kind of know firsthand what some of the issues affecting our elderly are. My mother-in-law also lived to be 97. It’s a population of people that deserve our respect, and they’ve paid their debt to society. It’s our time now to give them all that they need to live out the rest of their life in a comfortable, and safe, environment.”

The Assembly Member told Our Town that many of her constituents have expressed “fear that they’d be placed in an institution, or a similar setting, against their wishes.” Conversely, Seawright believes that aging-in-place would be not only more humane but more economical.

Seawright also drew attention to grants that her office had given to the Carter Burden Network, a prominent nonprofit that focuses on serving senior citizens, as well as to the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House on East 70th Street, which does similar work. She gave a shout-out to her “counterpart,” State Senator Cordell Cleare of Harlem, who chairs that chamber’s aging committee; Cleare is reportedly coordinating with Seawright’s office on aging-related legislation that they both consider important.

“Our seniors contribute to New York State’s economy as retirees,” she added, perhaps in a critique of those who don’t always recognize this fact. “It’s important that we address some of their issues.”

Seawright furthered such work when she attended a Feb. 11 rally held in support of the “Age Strong NYS” campaign, which is spearheaded by the advocacy organizations LiveOn NY. The initiative, which State Senator Cleare has also thrown her weight behind, seeks to push Gov. Hochul and other legislators toward investing $123.3 million in services for senior citizens.