Homeless Outreach & Housing Stability
Street outreach, shelter referral, transitional housing coordination, and long-term case management for neighbors without a place to rest.
Who We Are
The 514 is a community development corporation rooted in Kansas City, MO. We believe lasting change happens on a first-name basis — through steady presence, honest work, and the quiet conviction that every neighbor belongs. We are here. We stay. We serve.
The 514 began the way most enduring things do — with a small group of neighbors who noticed what everyone else had learned to walk past. A young person without a mentor. A family one paycheck from losing their home. A man sleeping in the doorway of the church around the corner.
We are not a program or a project. We are a community development corporation, which is a practical name for something simple: we live here, we know our neighbors by name, and we organize the work no single family should have to do alone.
Our work is patient by design. Renewal is not an event; it is a habit of showing up. We believe in the long arithmetic of trust — the kind that turns a corner into a home, a home into a block, and a block into a neighborhood that remembers itself.
Everything we do is rooted in a single conviction: our neighbors are not problems to be managed. They are people to be known.
“We don’t serve needs. We serve neighbors.”
Our Work
Street outreach, shelter referral, transitional housing coordination, and long-term case management for neighbors without a place to rest.
Mentorship, tutoring, arts programming, leadership development, and college readiness for young people ages 7 to 18.
Job readiness training, vocational certifications, financial literacy, and resume support for neighbors seeking steady work.
Program 01
Program 02
Program 03
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Our name is drawn from two verses that share a chapter and a verse — the fifth chapter, the fourteenth verse. One asks us to be visible. The other asks us to love the person nearest to us. Together, they describe the work.
Leadership
Aaron Dixon
Executive Director & Founding Director
Cydney Harris
Director
Andrea Mitchell
Director
Happening Now

Ongoing Initiative
Supporting neighbors experiencing homelessness across Greater Kansas City. We assemble practical care kits — packed into backpacks or five-gallon care buckets — and distribute them throughout the area. It is an ongoing commitment: whenever donations allow, kits go out the door.
Donate
Every gift becomes shelter referrals, tutoring sessions, transitional housing coordination, certifications, and the small, ordinary supplies that make a program feel like a home. Recurring donations are the steadiest kind of help — they let us plan the year ahead.
Volunteer
Care kit assembly evenings, community care drives, tutoring sessions, and an hour of presence with a neighbor who needs one. Tell us where you would like to begin.