Two cafes that train and employ Canberrans recovering from a mental illness will be closed later this month, causing distress for staff and clients.
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The Mental Illness Fellowship is ending programs that provide training, paid work experience, and a supported return to the labour market for its clients at cafes at the ACT Magistrates Court and ACT Health's Moore Street building in Civic.
The cafes are due to close this month, a decision that will impact 10 employees and clients.
Fellowship ACT region manager Gavin Bussenschutt said all the current clients would be supported, and would either finish the program before the closures, or be offered employment through the organisation's garden maintenance business.
He said running the program through cafes had become impossible, and was not financially viable in a highly-competitive industry.
He also cited significant uncertainty about the future of both contracts, due to the major redevelopment of the court precinct and the recommissioning of the ACT Health site.
Government funding for the program is also being changed as part of the National Disability Insurance Scheme implementation, but Mr Bussenschutt said the fellowship had known that for years, and it was not the reason for the closures.
The decision has upset many of the cafes' workers.
Manager Saurabh Bhargava helped set up the ACT Health and court cafes, and will now be made redundant.
"I built this with my hands, so it's bad," he said.
"I'm more worried about the people who are here. Clients get affected a lot, some of them have been crying.
"Their lives depend on the training, they wake up in the morning and come here, it's a therapeutic approach which the cafes have."
But the fellowship and the ACT Government say they are working to ensure clients participating in the cafe program will continue to be supported.
Three of the clients are due to finish the program before the closures, and the other four have been offered an opportunity to transfer to a similar program with the fellowship's garden and home maintenance business, NorthSouth Contractors. All four had accepted.
Mr Bussenschutt said the fellowship was committed to finding new ways to deliver such programs.
A spokesman for Health Minister Simon Corbell said the decision had been made by the fellowship because the financial returns from the cafes were not covering the costs of running the program.
The cafes are due to close on June 12.
