15 Impacts in 15 Years

May 2, 2025 | By: Doug Cowan, President & CEO

In April 2025, Doug Cowan, President & CEO of CSL, started his 16th year with the organization. During the month, we looked back at 15 impactful developments that have moved CSL, and our community, forward over the last 15 years. Community input, donors, and partnerships helped all of these impactful developments come to fruition. It’s worthy to note that these are presented in no particular order, and Doug acknowledges that there are many impactful moments that could easily be highlighted.

CSL built its first building and opened a new headquarters in 2011 at 404 North Noland Road in Independence. Donors generously gave more than $3 million to expand CSL’s capacity to help neighbors. Putting CSL on Noland Road and next to the bus transit center gave us great visibility and access for those seeking services. Importantly, it provided a great working space for our staff and volunteers, and gave space for CSL to grow our programs and services. The opening of this building forever changed the trajectory of CSL.

In 2011, CSL was invited to apply, and was subsequently selected, to be part of the local Continuum of Care (COC). The COC is a network of providers that operate Permanent Supportive Housing, Transitional Housing, and Rapid Rehousing, with a majority of the funds needed coming from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. CSL’s first contract was for $144,000 and supported about 10 families exiting homelessness. Today, our contracts are worth $2,500,000, and we hold the leases to 155 properties in Jackson and Wyandotte Counties, and help 255 formerly-homeless individuals. We are also the only designated Coordinated Entry site in Eastern Jackson County, which is how unsheltered individuals can enter the queue to be part of this program. Our housing staff, which numbered one in 2011, is now more than 20, and includes case managers and outreach workers.

(Pictured: An unsheltered person living under the bridge at I-70 and Sterling Avenue. *Photo credit: Tiffany Marie Photography)

In 2016, CSL received the designation as a LISC Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) through LISC of Greater Kansas City, and we joined a national network of around 125 other FOCs across the country. The partnership allowed CSL to move from transactional assistance with our neighbors to a relationship-focused coaching experience. Financial Coaching has since been baked into everything we do, and we set goals around, and track, improvements in household income, net worth, and credit scores. We also changed our employment focus from job placement to LISC’s Bridges to Career Opportunities model, which helps adults earn certificated job credentials in high-demand fields with upward opportunities.

In 2017, CSL began a partnership with POAH (Preservation of Affordable Housing) at their Hawthorne Place Apartments property in Independence to place full-time staff there to offer on-site social services. Over the last nine years, CSL has grown our presence to 13 staff members that help with family stability, community development, financial coaching, job training, basic needs, wealth and asset development, housing stability, resource coordination, credit union services, and much more.

This partnership helped CSL, across the agency, move from transactional services with individual households to deploying neighborhood-based strategies. Two of the most telling data points of our POAH partnership are:

More than 30 families have graduated from our Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) wealth and asset development program and used their savings to purchase their own home. In total, participants have saved more than $1 million through the FSS program.

In 2016, the average tenancy rate was only 2.1 years, meaning families lived for but a short time at Hawthorne, and that hurt their ability to develop stability and relationships, including schooling for their children. Since then, the average tenancy rate has nearly double to 4.2 years, meaning that families are staying longer and investing in themselves and their community.

We look forward to continuing this great work, and we are always thankful that our neighbors at Hawthorne Place Apartments invite us to be part of their community, and allow us to come to work there every day!

In 2016, CSL celebrated its 100th anniversary. Milestone anniversaries often carry inherent pressure to capitalize on the occasion to help an organization move forward. Those high expectations were no different at CSL.

During our year-long celebration, we reflected on our past, present, future and reminded ourselves of our legacy of neighbors helping neighbors. We hosted our Centennial gala at the Intercontinental Hotel on the Plaza, and it helped grow our fundraising capacity, which has carried forward through the present day.

Perhaps most importantly, we developed a new strategic plan to guide our future. That strategic plan, and its future iterations, guided incredible programmatic growth in the coming decade.

How CSL responded to the centennial opportunity in front of us back in 2016 has had a major impact on where we are today as an organization!

When I (Doug) started in 2010, our employment offering was called Work Express. It was a good program, with great coaches, and it was designed to help with immediate employment needs. We helped jobseekers polish their resume, locate job openings that aligned with their skills, navigate online job portals, and much more. Our Noland Road computer lab was one of our most popular assets as few people had access to computers for job searches and applications.

While Work Express was a good offering, it became clear that helping adults access long-term career opportunities was more highly-aligned with CSL’s migration towards programming that aligns with upward economic mobility. Our first cohort of trainees was funded with a grant from the City of Independence to train 15 students to become Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs). We received State of Missouri designation as a CNA training site, so we funded a cohort through Metropolitan Community Colleges, and hosted the classes at CSL’s BlendWell Communidad + Cafe. After five weeks of classes, our cohort did their clinicals at University Health-Lakewood Campus in their long-term care facility. Within 12 weeks, 14 of the 15 students graduated and started their new careers, and we knew we had some great opportunities.

Today, we partner with Great Jobs KC to offer nearly 20 career pathways, and we assist around 500 students a year in their journey. Since that first cohort, hundreds more have graduated to work in healthcare, logistics, transportation, technology, skilled trades, and much more, and most graduates come close to doubling their former wages. We wrap around our trainees with financial coaching and other supports that help them continue moving forward in life. Many also have children and we note this program as a “2-Gen” approach to ending poverty, because kids see their parents investing in their future and achieving great success.

(Photo: A cohort of CNA graduates in August 2022)

In 2017, CSL began our first attempt at helping to build asset development accounts. We started by managing HUD’s Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Program at Hawthorne Place Apartments in Independence. Since 2017, we have worked with Hawthorne residents to save more than $1,350,000 in their accounts. Savers work with a CSL Financial Coach to reach their stated goals.

More recently, CSL received philanthropic support to start a new program in Northwest Independence, and more than $225,000 has been saved with that program.

In total, we’ve helped families develop more than $1,500,000 in assets. These assets build financial resilience, promote family stability, and help families reach their financial dreams. Of our 347 participants, 33 have used their savings funds to buy a home, which helps build more long-term assets for a family. Other savers use their asset accounts for transportation, citizenship, small business startup or expansion, debt retirement, legal issues, home repairs, and more.

CSL works intentionally to help bridge the racial wealth gap, and has a special emphasis on helping Families of Color improve their asset development. More than two-thirds of our savers are Black or Hispanic families, and 18 of the families that have used their savings to buy homes are Families of Color.

We now work to incorporate asset development programs throughout the organization to promote financial resilience and upward economic mobility, and we hope to grow this part of CSL in the future!

Pictured: The Pizarro family, who used their FSS savings from Hawthorne Place Apartments to purchase a home in 2020.

In 2014, CSL forged a partnership with Holy Rosary Credit Union to start a “Transportation to Work” program. It was designed to offer reasonable interest rates on used cars to help people get to work. Soon, the program morphed into our Small Dollar Lending program. As of the end of 2024, the program had lent $3,184,000 to borrowers needing access to capital at reasonable interest rates.

The program became most well-known for refinancing toxic, high-interest loans like payday loans, title loans, and high-interest vehicle loans. By wrapping in financial coaching and education, we helped borrowers forge a new financial path for their family.

In total, we have closed 834 loans, and borrowers have had a 89.9% successful payback rate, with a total of 26,351 payments made that help boost credit scores. Borrowers also access banking products like direct deposit, checking and savings accounts, debit and credit cards, and other products to help their banking access and build positive credit.

We also partnered with local cities to impose planning and zoning requirements that limited the number of short-term lending operations in their communities.

Along the way, we have opened micro-branches of Holy Rosary Credit Union inside our Noland Road and Hawthorne Place Apartments locations for better access. We are thankful to our partners at Holy Rosary for helping build strong financial futures for local families!

Pictured: Former Holy Rosary loan officer, Pat Henshaw, helps a credit union member at the branch inside CSL’s Noland Road office.

The creation of the Eastern Jackson County Drop-In Center, in partnership with Good Shepherd Community of Christ, marks a major accomplishment for CSL. The Drop-In Center builds on the great work Good Shepherd has been doing to care for the unhoused, and expands our capacity to offer year-round services. The opening of the Center acknowledges that the number of people living unsheltered is at a crisis level, and we opened it in an area that is central to a high concentration of people living on the streets along the 40 Highway corridor.

The Drop-In Center philosophy builds on CSL’s momentum around coaching. People don’t often leave homelessness without the help of a coach, and our staff, along with Good Shepherd volunteers, help create a pathway to permanent housing.

When the Drop-In Center is fully built out, guests will also have access to laundry and shower facilities, helping us meet needs that can create public health challenges.

Doug recalls that, early in his tenure at CSL, the news reported that a man died at the corner US 24 Highway and Grand in Northwest Independence. The cause of death was being unsheltered in the freezing cold. The next day, a co-worked shared that the deceased was known to people at CSL, and he had been trying to improve his situation. Doug remembers this as a turning point in how he perceived CSL’s work with those living outdoors. “I remember thinking, this is unacceptable, and this shouldn’t be happening in the community where I live and work. We have to do better.”

CSL’s Housing Services team has built a comprehensive cold weather sheltering plan tailored for our Eastern Jackson County community. EJC lacks emergency sheltering capabilities, so CSL’s staff have arranged for blocks of hotel and motel rooms during the coldest nights of the year. Volunteers, support groups, police departments, and ride share professionals help provide transportation to Kansas City-based shelters or hotel/motel rooms during extreme cold weather. CSL outreach staff also work on creative sheltering solutions, such as family/friend reunification. Staff also provide ongoing case management and access to basic needs like food, clothing, and personal hygiene.

In the winter of 2024-2025 from which we just emerged, CSL provided more than 5,418 nights of hotel/motel stays to 551 individuals, powered by more than $150,000 of philanthropy and government support. This was an all-time high and is reflective of the growing number of people living unsheltered. CSL is actively working with partners to identify opportunities for congregate sheltering that would allow us to continue housing large numbers of people safely, but at a more sustainable cost.

The largest financial endeavor CSL has ever undertaken was our management of federal Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) dollars. Jackson County selected us as their ERA grant manager in 2021. Between 2021-2024, CSL managed more than $40 million of federal grants that flowed into Jackson County. The Jackson County ERA money was designated to the Jackson County communities outside of the city limits of Kansas City (KC had their own federal contract), so we engaged partners in Raytown, Grandview, and Lee’s Summit to have a network of providers in EJC.

All told, this work prevented more than 8,000 evictions in Jackson County, and saved thousands of children from having their lives turned upside down and also prevented them from having to switch schools and disrupt their learning.

Additionally, this provided significant relief to landlords, who are critical to providing safe and stable housing options in our community.

During the process, we had offices in each of the Jackson County courthouses, and we worked collaboratively with 16th Circuit District Court professionals to mitigate cases on the tenant-landlord docket. That experience continues to inform our work today, as we continue to work to mitigate and prevent evictions. We know that for many families, eviction can be the start of a downward spiral that leads to homelessness.

In March 2023, CSL started a supported employment program for adults experiencing homelessness. What this means is that we eliminate all possible barriers to work so that individuals experiencing homelessness can use employment as a springboard to permanent housing.

You know this work as Independence T.O.G.E.T.H.E.R., our partnership with the City of Independence, and we employ unhoused workers to provide cleaning services to our roadways, green spaces, historic and commercial districts, parks, and watershed areas. Our success led to an additional contract for services with the Missouri Department of Transportation, and puts an additional crew on State-maintained roadways in Jackson County. You likely saw in March that we celebrated 1,000,000 pounds of litter removed in our first two years of work.

Most importantly, more than 15 formerly-unsheltered workers now have permanent and unsubsidized housing, and continue to receive employment, housing, and financial coaching from CSL. This success shows that we have many pathways to help move people into permanent housing, and we see future opportunities to expand this model!

In 2023, CSL rolled out our post-pandemic strategic plan, which was important, because we all were searching for a guiding light following the strains of the pandemic. The formation of the plan was based on a year of listening to neighbors, staff, volunteers, and donors. Our board-approved strategic plan tackled the most important questions of who we want to be and how we want to show up in our community.

Our reimagined mission and vision statements put the power and dreams of change into the hands of those we walk alongside, rather than inferring it’s CSL’s mission to “change” people. We recommitted that our primary work is coaching and supporting individuals to pursue their brightest future, whatever that may be. We adopted core value statements that prioritized people above process, infused the principles of trauma-informed care into all aspects of our work, and through diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging strategies, we work to make CSL a place where all people are welcome.

Our seven aspiration areas outline opportunities we believe CSL is well-position to help our communities, including the program areas of Workforce Development, Financial Coaching, Housing, Basic Needs, Community Development, and our CSL internal focuses of Capacity and Effectiveness, and Organizational and Financial Resilience.

The creation and opening of BlendWell Community Cafe has meant so much to CSL since 2018. The coffee shop offered a spark of economic opportunity and community gathering in an area suffering from disinvestment.

What we hadn’t counted on was the growth of our Community Development and WorkLife Center programming in our BlendWell space at 10725 East US 24 Highway in Northwest Independence. CSL added community development management staff to better connect our Northwest Independence community, along with opportunities for family stability and wealth and asset development. Our WorkLife Center has four full-time staff working to connect adults with certificated job trainings.

Community gatherings, especially for panel discussions and social events bring conversation and connections, and create a place for people to belong and feel connected and heard.

Soon, we will announce that an entrepreneur will be operating our café space, and we can’t wait to share that story! Our robust programming will remain the same, and BlendWell will continue to be a significant gathering space in our community.

While CSL has enjoyed, and our community has benefited from, incredible programmatic growth over the last 15 years, we’ve never lost sight of who we are and where we came from. CSL will turn 109 years old on June 16, 2025, that history can be summarized as a legacy of caring, and a legacy of neighbors helping neighbors.

Twenty-two women founded CSL in the middle of World War I, and, according to the archives, much of the work was done door to door, checking on vulnerable people. Volunteers in the early days also went door to door seeking donations or pledges to keep the newly-formed organization afloat. Today, volunteers and grass roots support efforts remain the heartbeat of the organization. More than 250 volunteers help out on a recurring basis, and more than 1,000 people will volunteer at least once this year. More than 1,500 donors will make monetary contributions to CSL this year, and our total support is projected to be more than $10,000,000. This is incredible community support!

When our doors open today in Blue Springs, Buckner, Grain Valley, Independence, or Oak Grove, we always remember that it is a neighbor standing on the other side of the door. We have a duty to care for one another, and we take that very seriously. The image shared today is the CSL logo, and it, of course, represents neighbors lifting each other up.

A parting note from Doug: “Thank you for following along this month as I’ve shared 15 impactful moments over the last 15 years. I could have kept the list going beyond 15, and I regret that I didn’t get to include every impactful moment on this brief list. Thank you for your continued interest in CSL, and support of our work. Most importantly, I appreciate your friendship during my 15 years at CSL. May we collectively resolve to work harder to create a stronger community in the days and years to come.