HOGAR Foundation is tasked with supporting the mission of HOGAR, Inc., a 501c3 organization. In 2026 HOGAR Inc. celebrated its 30-year anniversary and continues to change lives every day. Initially serving the immediate South Bronx, HOGAR has grown to meet the needs of the entire metro NYC area. HOGAR Foundation will provide educational scholarships via the Noris Colon award. Additionally, the Foundation will augment programmatic needs, and it will lay the foundation for an assisted living/memory care unit. Further causes funded by the foundation will be to support the needs of the city and state of New York in accordance with the mission of HOGAR, which in essence is to help those who cannot help themselves.
Noris Colon
HOGAR Founder
Born in Salinas, Puerto Rico, and raised in Manhattan, Noris Colon has dedicated over four decades to uplifting New York’s most vulnerable communities. In 1996, she founded HOGAR, Inc. with a vision to support the homeless, elderly, mentally challenged, and individuals living with HIV/AIDS, helping them rebuild their lives within their own neighborhoods. Under her leadership as President and CEO, HOGAR grew into a multicultural agency providing housing, mental health services, and daily care to hundreds across the South Bronx and beyond.
A former NYC Commissioner of Human Rights and lifelong advocate, Noris also served on Local Planning Board #2, the Lincoln Hospital Advisory Committee, and founded the Bronx Peoples Coalition to save the Bronx Psychiatric Center. She has been a trailblazer in housing development for special needs populations and was certified by the NYS Office of Mental Health in psychiatric rehabilitation and habilitation.
