This past legislative session, mental health advocates and nonprofit organizations lined up behind a bill that would have established eight peer-run respite homes in Connecticut – homes where people experiencing mental or behavioral health issues can go for help and time away from their daily lives and are staffed by individuals with lived experience.
For supporters of peer-run respites, the homes offer a low-cost way for Connecticut to bolster its mental health system in a way that avoids an individual being locked in a psychiatric hospital. While the bill, which had a $5.5 million fiscal note, passed out of committee, it never came to a vote during a short legislative session with very tight budget constraints.
However, an amendment to Senate Bill 1 – an omnibus health bill approved in the House and Senate on a bipartisan basis – requires that the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) open one peer-run respite home. The new home will cost between $500,000 and $650,000, and the funding is already provided through the federal government’s Safer Communities Mental Health Block Grant.
The home, called Gloria House, will reportedly be opened in New Britain in July, and be run by New Life II, a nonprofit ministry based in New Britain created by pastors Dana and Evelyn Smith that focuses on mental health and addiction recovery.
The Gloria House was chosen under a Request for Proposals issued by DMHAS after their first RFP was met with pushback from providers – essentially no one bid on the project because of both philosophical and funding concerns. DMHAS then renegotiated the RFP and was able to secure a contract with New Life II.
And while mental health advocates appreciate that Connecticut will finally have its first peer-run respite home – despite wanting eight – they also remain wary about changes made to the original bill that were wrapped into the amendment, particularly regarding how a peer-run respite is defined in Connecticut.
One piece of the original bill that was removed in the amendment is that peer-run respite homes in Connecticut are not made up of more than 10 percent clinical services, a provision that supporters feel is integral to the peer-run model, ensuring that peer respites remain peer-run and are not taken over by clinical practices.
“We are excited about the fact that Connecticut will finally have its first peer respite and that is recognized in statute,” said Jordan Fairchild, executive director of the Keep the Promise Coalition, a nonprofit organization created in the wake of Connecticut’s closing of mental health facilities. “It is mainly disappointing to us that the department chose to pursue this amendment in the way that they did.”
“If the department is seeking these changes, they really need to have a conversation with the community which is where this bill originated, instead of doing these types of backroom dealings,” Fairchild continued.
“I think we completely missed the mark when it came to the legislation,” said Jeffrey Santo, a recovery support specialist and executive director of RIPPLE, a nonprofit that uses peer support to counsel individuals through mental health crises. “For peer run, there should not be any clinical services whatsoever associated with the respite.”
After decades of funding cuts for mental health as Connecticut faced budget crises, the General Assembly renewed efforts around mental health in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw increased mental health needs for both children and adults across the state, resulting in a lack of in-patient beds and long emergency room waits.
While much of Connecticut’s mental health legislation has focused on children and youth, peer-run respites are for adults. A peer respite home typically resembles a normal house but is staffed 24/7 by employees with lived experience.
Residents of the house can typically stay up to seven days and are free to come and go as they please, so they don’t have to stress about missing work or friends and family and maintain their confidentiality. Residents are not required to participate in therapy, although it is offered, nor are they required to take medication, but can bring their own.
Connecticut’s mental health advocates typically point to the successful Afiya House model in Massachusetts, which is designed as an alternative to the clinical model of in-patient psychiatric care in a locked hospital facility.
Studies have found that peer-run respites, currently used by fifteen other states, offer a less coercive environment, are less costly than hospital stays, and boast better results with lower rates of hospitalization. However, the homes do experience some pushback from those concerned with housing individuals experiencing mental health crises outside of a medical facility.
“Having any kind of a respite is a good step,” Santo said. “I really think that we need to draw more attention to prevention, that these respites are a preventative measure. They’re not just something we want to have; it’s so people can have this option outside of the emergency room.”
“Across the United States in 2023, we lost more than 50,000 people to suicide,” Santo continued. “Over that same time period, more than 1.6 million people attempted suicide. That’s five hundred thousand more people than the population of Rhode Island.”
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