How Providence Humboldt Evergreen Lodge supports patients through the hardest days.  

When miles become a barrier
A cancer diagnosis is devastating enough. For patients on the North Coast — some traveling from Crescent City, Shelter Cove or across the Oregon border — it comes with an added burden: how do you afford to be away from home for seven weeks of daily radiation treatment?

Evergreen Lodge exists to answer that question. Located on the St. Joseph Hospital campus, this 14-room lodging facility offers patients and their families a safe, affordable place to stay — for as little as $20 a night, a fee that is frequently waived entirely.

“Imagine living two hours away and having a baby in the NICU,” says Providence Humboldt Social Work Coordinator Janette Garrison, who has run the Lodge for years. “You have to be there. It’s just impossible for people to afford motels.”

More than a place to sleep
Before Evergreen Lodge opened its doors more than 35 years ago, no facility of its kind existed on the North Coast. Patients and families navigating long-term hospital stays faced an impossible choice: pay for weeks of expensive overnight accommodations, or make the exhausting daily drive back and forth from home. For those coming from outlying areas, neither option was sustainable.

So the community built something better — a partnership between Providence St. Joseph Hospital, Rotary Club of Southwest Eureka, the American Cancer Society, College of the Redwoods and local builders, rooted in a simple belief that no one should have to forgo care because of where they live. Today, eight rooms with full kitchens serve longer-term patients, while six additional rooms accommodate shorter stays. The shared common spaces often become an unexpected source of comfort. “We had someone here for quite some time who loves to cook,” Janette says. “Yesterday she made lasagna and everyone came and ate together.”

The heart of the operation
Running Evergreen Lodge requires a leader who is equal parts social worker, property manager and patient advocate. Janette draws on more than three decades of experience to do whatever the day requires — connecting a patient to their care team, tracking down a maintenance issue or simply sitting with someone who needs to talk.

Because she spent years working in radiation oncology and the chemo clinic, she knows the hospital’s systems inside and out. “They’re like, I don’t know when my treatment ends,” she says. “I just pick up the phone and I can get the answer in 30 seconds versus them struggling to find it.” It’s motel management, bed and breakfast management, and social work, she says — all in one.

For Janette, the reward is in the reactions of the people who walk through the door. “They are very grateful,” she says. “It’s beautiful, it’s quiet, it’s peaceful.” For someone in the middle of the hardest experience of their life, that’s everything.