Norris Square Community Alliance

Norris Square Community Alliance (NSCA) is a grassroots, community-based development corporation founded in 1982 by a group of neighborhood women who desired to make Norris Square safer for their children and families. Unable to find outside help, they launched their own organization dedicated to the revitalization of the neighborhood and the empowerment of its residents. 

The mission is NSCA is to empower residents to become self-reliant and to unite and build the community by developing and improving the physical, economic, social, cultural, and educational aspects of the neighborhood. NSCA has done much to meet this mission, conducting an ambitious and comprehensive program of neighborhood revitalization, which includes Affordable Housing Development, Early Childhood Education, Youth Programs, Housing Counseling, and Community Organizing. Since our founding, we have built and rehabilitated over 147 units of affordable housing for lease and for sale, educated hundreds of low income infants and toddlers in our Head Start and Early Head Start programs, organized 70 neighborhood blocks, developed a worker owned housing contractor cooperative, built a food-based business incubator and farmer’s market called El Mercado, developed a senior housing apartment complex, and provided summer and after-school time programming to hundreds of neighborhood elementary and middle school youth. The work of NSCA is driven and directed by the families and residents of Norris Square who are active at every level of the organization, serving on our staff, board of directors, and advisory committees. Seventy percent of our board is comprised of neighborhood residents.