Founded in 1975, Stevens Square Community Organization (SSCO) is the official civic and social organization serving the Stevens Square-Loring Heights neighborhood, lying just south of the Minneapolis downtown zone and home to a dense community of residents and historic buildings. Many of the area’s brownstone apartment complexes were constructed almost exactly a century ago, and were originally home to middle-class office workers and sales people, many of them single women, who provided services to a rapidly growing urban center. 

Following the post-war flight of the middle class to the suburbs, by the 1990s the area gained a reputation for crime and crumbling infrastructure. Thanks to investments from the City’s Neighborhood Revitalization Program and an especially active community of neighborhood volunteers, the Stevens Square-Loring Heights neighborhood is now a vibrant and eminently walkable working-class community featuring a rare concentration of naturally occurring affordable housing. The well-preserved brownstone buildings remain  a unique window into the city’s heritage set against the downtown skyline.