The American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA), established in 1991 as a group of the National Multi Housing Council, and became a non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 ten years later on January 1, 2001.

Members of ASHA are involved in the operation

Business operations

Business operations are those ongoing recurring activities involved in the running of a business for the purpose of producing value for the stakeholders...

, development and finance

Finance

"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...

 of seniors housing - senior apartments, independent living communities, assisted living residences, ongoing care of retirement

Retirement

Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours.Many people choose to retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits, although some are forced to retire when physical conditions don't allow the person to...

 communities and seniors housing data collection and distribution. The Association has conducted research

Research

Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

 on topics beneficial to seniors housing owners, lenders, investor

Investor

An investor is a party that makes an investment into one or more categories of assets --- equity, debt securities, real estate, currency, commodity, derivatives such as put and call options, etc...

s, and policymakers. The Association's membership owns and/or manages an estimated 500,000 units of seniors housing related issues in the all U.S states, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.