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Alicia Fowler was in her case worker’s office. She and her son had just been accepted into the housing program at The Salvation Army Phoenix Emergency Family Shelter when an even greater setback emerged.
“I have a 2-year-old and I have cancer,” she sobbed to Case Manager Maria Torrez, both syllables of “cancer” stretched out like a brittle rubber band.
Fowler had no inkling what was coming next. Would the diagnosis disqualify her from the 120-day shelter program? Who would care for her Jaxon during her recovery? Is the breast cancer terminal?
“You have a lot of questions and I don’t have all the answers for all of them but I have this book,” Torrez said, plopping a resource guide the size of an old telephone book on her desk.
“It made a thud,” Fowler said. “I’ll never forget it.”
Fowler scanned the cover. “The Book of Cancer.”
“I don’t care if I have to call every single number from cover to cover, I’m going to help you find it out,” Torrez said.
The thud and Torrez’s words were a turning point for Fowler, who sought shelter after discovering a roommate was smoking fentanyl. She said the exposure killed her dog and she was desperate to get her son to safety.
“She carried a lot of guilt because that’s not what she wanted for her son,” Torrez said. “She was down on herself because she blamed herself.”
The shelter staff eased that internal tension.
“I was just so grateful,” Fowler said. “It was wonderful to have a support system because I’m just so used to struggling on my own.”
During intake, Torrez asked a wide range of questions to hone in on needed services for Fowler and Jaxon.
“What about medical issues?” Torrez asked.
Fowler mentioned a lump she found in her breast 10 years earlier, which doctors recommended she get biopsied. Lack of insurance was a barrier.
“It was wonderful to have a support system because I’m just so used to struggling on my own.”—Alicia Fowler
“Over the years I didn’t ever have the time to go in and even if I did have cancer, I didn’t really have anybody to help me through it or stable housing,” Fowler said. “It was just living paycheck to paycheck. I figured since it had been 10 years and it hadn’t changed at all that it wasn’t cancer.”
Torrez arranged for a doctor’s appointment and Fowler was stunned to hear one of the most frightening phrases in the English language: “You have cancer.”
“It was really hard,” Fowler said. “It was very humbling. I was already in a homeless shelter and I just felt like the world was caving in.”
Torrez and her team arranged Fowler’s surgery—a double mastectomy—while Fowler reached out to a half-brother in Washington who, providentially, recently purchased a home in Wickenburg, an hour from Phoenix. The couple took in Jaxon while Fowler recovered.
“She was so grateful [for] what we were doing for her but, in reality, she was uplifting for me because she just hit it head-on,” Torrez said. “God was with her the whole way and so there were blessings.”
Because of the surgery, The Salvation Army extended the Fowlers’ shelter stay.
“In certain cases, we’re able to bridge a family,” Torrez said.
At the shelter, Fowler enrolled in financial classes and saved money from delivery driving.
“There was no finger-pointing,” she said. “There was no judgment but there was just everything to help you build up instead of tearing you down, which I wasn’t personally used to.
“They challenge you to do different things. It’s not just housing. You go there to learn, and you go to learn exactly what got you there, which is a really good thing.”
While hospitalized for her surgery, Fowler received word The Salvation Army secured subsidized housing for her in nearby Scottsdale but there was a short window to file the paperwork. A staff member from the shelter drove to the hospital to get Fowler’s signature.
“Every step of the way they have gone far beyond the call of duty and far beyond anything that I ever would have expected,” she said.
Now, Fowler is cancer-free but faces another surgery related to reconstruction. In the meantime, she is pursuing her own business making silk orchids. One arrangement she made raised $600 for a silent auction benefiting the shelter.
Torrez attributes Fowler’s success to a desire to build strong family ties, something she missed after her parents’ passing.
“She has a great love for her little boy and she wanted to do better for him,” Torrez said. “She wants him to have better. I think [there’s] that mother’s instinct to do better, to believe that she was also worthy of better for herself. I think she knew that she just needed someone to say it to her in a loud voice.”
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