House of St Barnabas charity has closed with immediate effect after failing to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent cost-of-living crisis.

The charity, which over the last decade has supported more than 300 people who have experienced homelessness to find work and a home through its graduate programmes, said that efforts to survive this year had failed.

“The challenges that we have faced through the pandemic and subsequent years have eroded our financial reserves,” it said.

“We invested for growth this financial year and tried relentlessly to find ways to make the model work.

“But the returns did not come quickly enough.”

The Soho Square, London, based organisation includes a members’ bar and employment programmes to support those facing homelessness.

The financial challenges it faced were acerbated after its members bar ceiling was damaged “which lost us critical income and momentum”.

“While some of these losses were recouped through insurance, our business has not picked up to the level we needed to continue. With our costs growing substantially faster than income, our business model is simply not sustainable in the current economic environment, and we have had too many ‘rainy days’ to ride it out.”

We have explored other options for our model, but we no longer have the resources to invest in a new approach.

A seven strong team will be temporarily retained until the end of the month to manage with the winding down process and support its employment programme graduates. Adam Stephens and Chris Allen of Evelyn Partners LLP are being formally appointed as liquidators and formal notification to creditors “will follow in due course”, said the charity.

“Over the next few weeks, we will provide as much support as possible to staff, graduates and our wider community.”

It added: “We want to express our sincere thanks to all our members and supporters. We are so very sorry that the journey is ending here, but every penny you have spent or donated to us has helped us break the cycle of homelessness.

“Thanks to our incredible staff, senior leadership and wider staff team, past and present, who have worked passionately to try to overcome the challenges of the last few years and always prioritised our impact.”

The closure of St Barnabas is the second announced in the charity sector so far this year. Earlier this month Autism Understanding Scotland said it could no longer carry on amid concerns around its long term funding and burnout among remaining staff.

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