Hope in high gear
April Bowden walks around Wapato Park, pointing at familiar offshoot trails and brush clearings turned into temporary camps.
“I used to live right here,” she says.
Only a year removed from these surroundings, Bowden’s memory hasn’t had long to fade. Now, she’s living proof of her creed: “As soon as you change your mind, you can change your whole life.”
The strength to accept help
In June 2024, Bowden had been unhoused for eight years. As she was walking her new puppy, Bossy Boy, between Interstate 5 and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, she met mental health advocate Brandon Rabisa and Greater Lakes Mental Healthcare’s Homeless Outreach Stabilization and Transition (HOST) team.
“We talked to her and learned she wanted to get out of there and get off the streets,” Rabisa recalls.
Supported by donors and administered by the Washington State Health Care Authority’s Recovery Support Services, the HOST program provides outreach to individuals experiencing homelessness and other health challenges, including substance use disorder (SUD). Multidisciplinary teams offer behavioral health and medical, rehabilitative and peer services in the field to those without consistent access to care.
By that evening, the team had found a hotel room for Bowden and soon helped her enroll in SUD treatment.
“They stored my stuff and made sure I had everything I needed,” she reflects. “They gave me a safe place without being overpowering or overbearing. It was a big relief that they were with me every step.”
As Bowden began her recovery journey, Bossy Boy was temporarily placed with a foster family.
“To find someone that would take care of my dog while I took care of my life was amazing,” she says.
Charting a professional path
While Bowden regained her footing, the HOST team helped her overcome barriers to employment. After helping her get important documents, such as a birth certificate and Social Security card, the team further connected her with a position driving shuttle buses for Pierce Transit.
Bowden still remembers how it felt to share the news of her job offer.
“The excitement was electric,” she says. “When I was homeless for those years, I never felt like I had anybody. So, knowing I have this team of people that’s cheering me on has made me feel like, ‘You’re not alone; we’re in it with you.’”
That steady income enabled Bowden to find an apartment, reunite with Bossy Boy, pay her bills, buy a car and even start putting some money away. In May, she used those savings to graduate from National Standard Trucking School in Milton with her commercial driver’s license.
Today, Bowden is behind the wheel full-time as a semitruck driver. She credits her many achievements to the wraparound support of people like Rabisa, peer specialist Tesla Hanrahan and the entire HOST program.
While it’s been a group effort, Rabisa knows that Bowden’s determination has made all the difference.
“She just has so much drive,” he explains. “We can want it for every client we work with, but she’s wanted it from the get-go. She’s the real hero in all of this.”
Rediscovering hope
Bowden’s new reality has her seeing life through a different lens.
“For so long, I was just stuck in survival mode,” she explains. “Now, it’s dawned on me that anything is possible, and I never used to look at the future like that.”
Everyday moments remind Bowden just how far she’s come. While parking her truck recently, she encountered someone from her past — who looked up and didn’t recognize her. Realizing the distance she’d put between herself and her previous life, Bowden was moved to tears.
“It felt so unbelievably good,” she reflects.
To celebrate one year of recovery, Bowden decided to skydive.
“If you had told me over a year ago that I’d be living on my own, driving semitrucks and leaping out of planes, I would have laughed at you,” she says.
A community-backed effort
Donors are essential to HOST’s ability to deliver whole-person care, allowing more clients to access critical support for transportation, basic needs and housing — all of which help build lasting stability.
“Having this kind of funding, especially for housing, is really the difference-maker in whether we change someone’s life,” Rabisa says.
Bowden thanks everyone who donates to the program that’s given her a new trajectory and hopes it will impact even more people in her situation.
“HOST made it possible for my entire life to turn 180 degrees, from ruins to riches,” she explains. “Not riches like money — it’s more fulfilling than that. My life is rich because I know I have a second life now, and it’s an amazing one.”
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