Peer respite programs, run by and for people in mental health recovery, have been around since the 1990s in the United States.
The National Empowerment Center defines a peer respite as a voluntary, short-term, 24/7 community-led program that offers non-clinical crisis support in a homelike setting.
According to the Center’s directory, there are currently 45 peer respites operating in California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Yet there’s still much to learn about these innovative community health models.
To better understand how one CBO does it, Public Good News spoke with Yasmin Flasterstein, co-founder and executive director at Peer Support Space, who we last spoke to in January. Flasterstein shared more about how peer respites work and what her org is learning from operating Eva’s Casita.
Here’s what they said.
[Editor’s note: The contents of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.]
Public Good News: What is Eva’s Casita?
Yasmin Flasterstein: Eva’s Casita is what’s called a peer respite. We are the only peer respite of our kind in Florida. But we’re not the first: Gainesville Peer Respite, which is now shut down, used to exist.
We’re kind of like a bed and breakfast for big feelings. We’re a space where people can stay for up to a week to just get away from their home environment and have a self-driven break, whatever that looks like for them.
It’s staffed 24/7 with peer supporters, people who have extensive training to hold space for others, but without fixing, analyzing, or diagnosing. It’s totally non-clinical.
When people stay with us, they can do optional activities. They can do scheduled activities, but it’s basically up to them. It’s a space where, whatever I’m navigating, I don’t have to navigate it alone.
Since opening in April 2024 to August 2025, Eva’s Casita has served 192 individuals and hosted 320 respite stays.
PGN: How is a peer respite different from a psychiatric hospitalization?
Y.F.: Peer respites are a holistic alternative to psychiatric hospitals, where consent and autonomy are centered throughout every single interaction.
There’s a time and place for different things. But I’ve never heard someone say, ‘Let me take a nice, relaxing break at the mental health hospital.’
There’s not a lot of alternatives where I can get away and I can have big feelings in a space where my autonomy isn’t taken away.
I’m not handed a treatment plan. I’m trusted to know what I need at this moment, and it’s also not an interruption to work or school.
No one’s going to understand a community member like their community itself, so peer support really makes a lot of sense.
And peer support focuses on not just crises. We live with a mental health system that, a lot of times, I’m waiting until things are really bad, and then I’m being hospitalized, and then I’m staying there as long as my insurance can let me.
Oftentimes, that’s not more than three days and I’m being sent right back out. We don’t do that for physical health.
We understand the need and the importance of prevention and long-term care for physical health. You wouldn’t wait until you broke every bone in your body to see a doctor for physical health, but we kind of do that for mental health, right?
Peer support really catches people where they’re falling between the cracks of our mental health system in a way that focuses on long-term sustainability and making sure that we’re putting the responsibility of healing not just on individuals, but really looking at a community-care model and how we can wrap people around with support so they don’t have to do it alone.
PGN: What have you learned since Eva’s Casita opened its doors to the public?
Y.F.: Peer Support Space was founded in 2019, and the goal was always to have a peer respite.
Eva’s Casita is named after our founding board president, Eva Fajardo, who passed away. It’s really been everything that I hoped it would be and then some.
There’s such a different view of peer support than there was six years ago. We’ve come a far way, not just as Peer Support Space, but as a community, at least in Central Florida.
It took a lot of clinicians saying, ‘Hey, this makes sense, there’s something here.’ And ‘Y’all need to listen!’ for people to take us seriously.
Eva, who we named our space after, really played a large role in that. She was the therapist for therapists after Pulse. She was a practicing therapist for over 40 years, highly respected in the community and a clinician.
Most of our board members, when we first started, were clinicians. Because it took clinicians saying, ‘Hey, there’s value in lived experience,’ for other clinicians and systems to turn around and even give us the time of day, you know?
And now we’re a part of Central Florida’s mental health system. Therapists know who we are, and we know who they are, and we have great partnerships and relationships where we can lean on one another and fill the gaps for one another, for what the other person doesn’t do. And I think that was a big thing.
There’s research that shows that when you use peer support in addition to other resources, you have higher satisfaction with those other resources, not just with your overall mental health.
So, it really is this complementary thing where we can work together.
PGN: What about financial impacts?
Y.F.: Peer respites have a huge cost savings for our community. The cost [it takes to run] one night at a peer respite costs a lot less than one night [at an] inpatient [facility].
It saves individuals as well as the community thousands to millions of dollars in things like Medicaid expenditures. The resources we provide at no cost are only possible with donations from the community.
Also, research shows that staying at a peer respite will lead to fewer hospitalizations in the year after staying at the peer respite versus before.
PGN: What does this peer support look like? What should health workers know?
Y.F.: Peer supporters are highly trained. In Florida, they have to have over 40 hours of training and over 500 hours of experience, including an additional 16 hours of on-the-job supervision as well as take a test and have ongoing continued education. So there’s a lot that goes into it.
I like to share that, because if I am not educated on what peer support is, I might fill that with fear and stigma, right?
I highly recommend [health workers] getting knowledgeable about what peer support resources might exist for those they support.