Tucked just at the corner of Front and Strickland streets for the last four years, Twisted Wood Works is getting ready to close its shop in the coming weeks as it’s no longer financially feasible.

The turn of events is something that’s come as a disappointment to not only a worker there, but the executive director of the non-profit that operates it.

That’s Jillian Hardie with Challenge Disability Resource Group, who told the Star this morning the move has been four months in the making.

Though disappointed, Hardie said it wasn’t surprising for her but acknowledged it may have been for the nine or so workers employed there.

“For four months, we’ve been kind of like, ‘this needs to change,’” Hardie said.

The last year has seen the group try to ramp up its marketing and awareness to get customers in the door, she added.

“People don’t understand, it still costs to make the products.”

Twisted is a social enterprise owned and operated since 2015 by Challenge. That non-profit agency helps those living with disabilities become independent members of the community, by learning job skills and finding work.

Twisted has also seen its products be gifted to the Senate, American diplomats and local speakers.

“When they hear we’re a social enterprise, they think we should be getting this for cheaper,” Hardie said.

Those expenses have increased within the last year; in order to make the custom wood products, the group has seen the costs of material rise by 30 per cent in one year alone, she estimated.

That’s on top of a shortage of lumber and increase in labour costs, though operational costs like rent stayed roughly the same.

(On a somewhat related note, the Yukon government is currently mulling over a suggestion to hike the hourly minimum wage from $11.51 to $12.60 as of April.)

At one point, Hardie pegged the revenue at around $166,000, with expenses totalling $277,000 – in other words, it was bringing in about 60 per cent of what it needed to get out of the red.

“I would’ve been happy if it could break even,” Hardie sighed. “It wasn’t able to pay its bills.”

That means products like cutting boards, shelving units, picnic tables, dog houses and the like tended to cost more to customers. A quick online search yields results that show Twisted cutting boards varied in price from $20 to $75.

The non-profit has seen a number of success stories over the years, Hardie added, recalling an individual who hadn’t left his home for a couple of years because of agoraphobia.

After entering into the employability skills program, he eventually set his sights on pursuing work in the electrical field.

Perhaps Twisted’s more well-known story is Tamara Perzan, who now works as the store’s operations manager.

Vocal about her past with severe anxiety, PTSD, agoraphobia and depression, Perzan is a mother of three who turned to Challenge in 2013.

Speaking to the Star this morning, she said she was given the news of the closure just weeks ago – and was shocked.

“I had hoped that there would have been more conversation with myself and the shop manager,” she said, “because it sort of blindsided us.”

Noting she “had felt like there was something in the air,” there wasn’t anything formal handed down until weeks ago.

She did sympathize with the reasoning though, echoing Hardie that the social enterprise wasn’t raking in the revenue it had hoped.

“With our employees that have disabilities, they need to be supervised to do these job.

“If it was a job that is an assembly line type of thing, you only need to show them so many times.

“That’s not the case with us; our labour costs were through the roof.”

That left the group unable to recoup the money for what it was charging for its custom products.

While she agreed that there was no silver bullet, it was disheartening to think of the mark it could leave as local supporters who would now be left without replacements.

“We were just starting to build momentum,” Perzan sighed. “Because we are a non-profit, our funding is limited and the real world problems of labour cost and materials, there’s no easy fix for it.”

While she was disappointed, she remained hopeful and grateful for the community support throughout the years.

“It’s a matter of will the public be supportive enough to pay more for what we’re building and get behind politicians to get more funding?” she said.

For its part, Hardie explained the board was shifting its attention to other more feasible parts of its projects that already exist. Examples are the Ledge, based in the Yukon Government Main Administration Building’s cafeteria, and Bridges Café & Catering.

“Core box plants is the one industry that is doing quite well financially too,” she said of one of the shops operated by Career Industries Ltd.

“Our focus is on the social piece, really focusing on providing employment opportunities for people with barriers to full capacity employment.”

For Perzan, while the workers at Twisted will be directly impacted, the move will also be felt by a number of small businesses in town that used its services.

Through small contracts to provide things like carry-out boxes, Hardie explained that those impacted include the Yukon Liquor Corp.

Perzan added others like Behind the Barn, Cultured Fine Cheese, Lumel Studios, Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, Yukon Transportation Museum and the Yukon Astronomical Society to the list.

It is for the society that she recalled Twisted building a customer wheelchair-accessible outhouse at one point, complete with a see-through ceiling so the stars were still visible.

That brought a sense of pride and accomplishment for the workers there, she added, as their eyes lit up when their products flew off the shelves.

“The reach Twisted has in the community goes far beyond just the fact the store is closing.

“All of that is secondary to the fact that our clients are now without a job that they were succeeding at,” Perzan said.

Being a social enterprise, she noted the changes coming down the pike for the workers could be dramatic.

“A lot of our people have made huge strides to really not having social interactions in their life to people coming in, conversing and looking forward to coming in and being excited, seeing their products sold.”

As for what’s next for the workers, she said she simply doesn’t know.

“There’s a couple of them, it’s really hard emotionally for them,” Perzan noted.

“This is going to be a long-reaching issue for them to deal with.

“I’m hoping we can reach out to the public, to speak up to the board of Challenge or whoever is in charge.”

That’s in efforts to show how significant Twisted has been in benefiting the community and local economy, she added.

“I don’t know what can happen; maybe there’s enough public outcry that some magic funding becomes available,” she laughed.

“It’s a service that’s needed in our communities, we’re offering things nobody else was offering.”

The wood shop and retail store are set to close their doors by March 15, with an inventory sale on March 9 on all leftover stock listed at 50 to 75 per cent off. That includes decor, seasonal items, furniture and cutting boards.

Scheduled for nine days from now, it will begin at 10 a.m. and run till 4 p.m. at the Front-Strickland site.