A Place to Call Home
And the comfort in knowing they're not alone
An accident on a distant highway. A call in the middle of the night. A sweaty-palmed, anxiety filled drive from one’s rural hometown to the ‘big’ hospital in Kelowna, hours away. Lights, doctors, machines, questions, waiting.
No one ever plans a trip to JoeAnna’s House. But every single guest who arrives needs only two things. A quiet place to rest. And the comfort of knowing they are not alone.
“It has a real community feel and people are very friendly here because they’re all in the same situation,” says Les, who became a guest of JoeAnna’s House after his wife was involved in a head-on collision near their hometown of Nelson, BC, and was transferred to KGH for complex trauma care. Les expected JoeAnna’s House to be fairly basic, just a place to stay between hospital visits. Instead, he says JoeAnna’s House became a place of solace, to decompress and share quiet conversations with others who understood what he was going through.
Cheryl’s journey began when her husband was suddenly transferred from Shuswap Lake General Hospital in Salmon Arm to KGH’s cardiac unit in critical condition. Family came into Kelowna from all directions, filling hotel rooms for a few uncertain days. Until, when visiting at the hospital, they were told about JoeAnna’s House. What began as a place to sleep became a gathering place for children, grandchildren, and loved ones as they came to visit Cheryl during her stay.
“There’s a real sense of community here,” Cheryl shared. “Everyone speaks to one another, and everybody’s going through something.”
Elaine arrived at JoeAnna’s House from the quiet, rural community of Scotch Creek. She initially wanted isolation, a motel room to come and go as she pleased, to retreat from everything unfolding around her husband’s heart surgery. After that first night, she moved to JoeAnna’s House because, very practically, it was so close to KGH. Elaine was immediately surprised by how different it felt.
“It felt like being in your own house,” she said. “It actually gave me the space I didn’t know I needed to just breathe. This along with the convenience of being a short walk from the hospital, having access to a kitchen, laundry, and the freedom to come and go without any added stress.”
One in four beds at KGH are occupied by someone who’s come from outside the Central Okanagan. Since opening in 2019, JoeAnna’s House has become a soft-landing spot for their loved ones. Over 2,500 guests, people just like Les, Elaine, and Cheryl.
Though they all arrive at JoeAnna’s House under different circumstances, they shared the same experience – a sense of community, a place they can call home.
