The purposes of conducting health assessments and compiling this aggregate report are to 1) document and share best practices among different group equity housing cooperatives, 2) to offer member co-ops a long-term outside view of their own growth, and 3) to suggest goals to member co-ops that are not yet commonly adopted but which are emerging practices in member cooperatives.

For this first aggregate report NASCO does not take a single position on the overall state of member and potential member cooperatives, though the health assessment reports for each individual co-op did include a single line summary of the co-op’s health, using a relative health rating on the following scale: Poor–Fair–Good–Excellent. For future reports, NASCO does intend to offer a simplified average of the health of all co-ops interviewed once it is possible to make this assessment both between co-ops and also compared against past years.

Considering the economic and social implications of conducting health assessments during the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, it is not surprising that many co-ops are facing major challenges that affect operations including increased operating costs, vacancies, unpaid or forgiven rent, lack of in-person gatherings, and/or low member engagement, and more. During this assessment cycle, no single co-op received an Excellent rating, demonstrating that even the most well-functioning co-ops have had recent setbacks. Although instability and uncertainty were prevalent themes of 2021, we believe that the results of our 2022 health assessments will show significant improvement based on subsequent interactions with member co-ops.