As 62-year-old John Crolla sat in a chair in Tacoma’s Nativity House homeless shelter, he said he did not remember much of what happened leading up to or after the stroke he suffered around February of this year.
“My memory is pretty blurry,” he told The News Tribune. “And I used to have a really good memory, so it took a lot of my pride.”
He is able to recall some fleeting moments around that time. He remembers answering the door of his Gig Harbor apartment to someone there to tell him he was being evicted. He remembers all of his belongings being thrown out. He remembers his five dogs, but not what happened to them. At some point his car got towed and impounded.
He remembers the anger and frustration he felt.
“I was ready to kill someone,” he said. “That felt like my whole life.”
He recalled finding shelter at Tacoma Rescue Mission for a time before needing care at Tacoma General Hospital. After being discharged he was moved to the Nativity House shelter on a medical respite program.
Being discharged from the hospital with no where to stay is not an uncommon occurrence in the Pierce County-Tacoma area.
Nowhere to go
A spokesperson for Multicare Health System, which runs both Tacoma General Hospital and Allenmore Hospital, told The News Tribune 90 people were referred to medical-respite shelters in 2023 because they were being discharged from the hospital with nowhere to live. As of Oct. 14, Multicare reported 84 referrals from the beginning of 2024.
Scott Thompson, a spokesperson for Multicare Health System, told The News Tribune that of the 174 referrals made, only about 60% of those people made it to a shelter. Thompson said that can happen for a number of reasons, including that the patient refused, did not show up or could have gone to stay somewhere else like a motel or hotel.
Jan Runbeck is a nurse who helps organize healthcare resources at the Nativity House shelter. She told The News Tribune the shelter has 12 beds reserved for medical-respite referrals.
She said patients discharged from the hospital can use the bed for 30 days before they have to be treated like everyone else who comes to the shelter and receives a bed on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Recognizing the need for more capacity, the county has began to invest in a new medical-respite facility that will be converted from an old hotel near the Tacoma Mall .
In wake of the stroke
In 1999, Crolla came from Canada for a job as a commodity trader for a lumber company. From his account, he was successful. He was skilled and enjoyed his career.
“It was stressful, but it was a different kind of stress from what I have experienced the past year,” he said of his experience living in homeless shelters since the time of his stroke.
He was in a coma following the stroke, he and staff at Nativity House were unsure how long he had been hospitalized. He was unable to work and unable to take care of himself.
He arrived at Nativity House with no documentation, which made it difficult for staff to connect him to resources. He told staff he suspected he had money in a bank account, but without the multiple forms of identification required, he was unable to access the funds.
Crolla told staff he wanted to go back home to Canada, but they were not sure how to assist him. After making some calls, it was apparent that Crolla would need to go to the Canadian consulate to try to obtain a passport.
He said his visit with the consulate was productive as he was able to prove his Canadian citizenship and obtain a passport. The consulate contacted his family members in Canada to see if they were interested in bringing him home.
“They wanted to make sure they weren’t shipping off some Timmy drooling on himself that would be Canada’s problem,” he joked.
His sister, whom he described as having a “distant at best” relationship with, agreed, and he obtained a one-way ticket back home to stay with her.
“It was enough to get me on a plane,” he told The News Tribune.
Nativity House staff said they got together some volunteers to take Crolla to the airport early on the morning of Oct. 8.
“I haven’t been home in 25 years,” he told The News Tribune. “It’ll be interesting to see how things have changed.”
Crolla said he hopes to find a job, particularly as a commodity trader as it was a career he loved.
When asked what luxuries he looks forward to enjoying, he said “staying up past 6 p.m.,” a joke about how early they turn the lights out at the shelters.
Staff at the Nativity House, who did not want to be identified by The News Tribune, celebrated Crolla as a successful exit from homelessness.
When asked if Crolla’s situation was unique, one staff member told The News Tribune that the shelter is full of people who have stories to tell.
“Every story that brings people to the point where they have no place to go is a unique story.”
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