VIDEO: JoeAnna's House tires of turning families away

There are 20 families taking advantage of Joanna's House today.

But another eight families had to be turned away.

It's time to expand.

The facility welcomes people visiting Kelowna while their loved ones are cared for at KGH.

The facility has been an amazing success, but with the ongoing expansion of services available at Kelowna General, it's simply not enough.

"We've had to turn away close to a thousand families," said Director Darlene Haslock.

So with a budget of $5.3 million, the plan is to add 10 more units. The expansion will see the building grow to the east over what is currently part of the parking lot.

"We are going to expand straight down Royal Avenue," explained Haslock.

"We've got five rooms on the main floor, five rooms on the second floor, and everything we have in place will be able to accommodate all of that."

The building was designed with a future expansion in mind, so the vision is to see the expansion take place without losing much capacity during construction.

"We hope that for just a very short period of time, we would have to close off one of the rooms upstairs and one of the rooms downstairs," she said.

It's all great news, but losing ten parking stalls will be challenging.

"We are certainly looking at what we can do to help folks out once they get here," said Haslock.

"That's our problem, two years down the road."

JoeAnna's House opened in 2019.

Since then, the expansion of services at KGH has led to a constant increase in demand.

"Our hospital, when we opened, had 400 beds and now they're up to 492," said Haslock.

"And 25% of the people in the hospital every night are from out of town."

he selection process for a builder is just getting underway.

The plan is to have construction underway within a year.