Is everything okay at HOME?

High up on the roof of HOME there once lived two hives of bees: Aldrin and Lightyear. They arrived in 2018 among wildflower planters crafted from disused stage props and theatre lights. After one year on the job, the bees had already delivered. HOME was able to launch ‘HOME Honey’, which, I’m reliably informed, flew (like bees) off the shelves. Eight years on, I bring ill tidings: the bees are dead.

When, at the tail-end of a conversation with one disgruntled former HOME staff member I probe the cause of this worrisome extinction event, he’s initially thrown off guard. Natural causes, probably? To many ex-staff, there may be no conspiracy (“obviously it's just fucking nature, it happens”, is one man’s biological assessment), but there is allegory. A colony of bees who had arrived to great fanfare almost a decade ago, the fruits of whose labour was supposed to bring sweetness and riches to the people of Manchester, had been allowed to die — and no one was discussing it. The fear was that HOME was heading the same way.

Let’s keep the metaphor going, why not? The most important bee in any colony, as we all know, is the Queen. To quote a random bee website I just found, it’s her role to “regulate the hive’s social structure and activities, preventing chaos”. The Queen Bee at HOME is Karen O’Neill, who joined the organisation as interim CEO in 2024, taking the job on full time in 2025.

And yet, chaos has become a major main theme of O’Neill’s tenure. It’s hard to arrive at an exact figure, but in 2025, a large number of staff departed. Separately, I’m told 29, 30 and 31; HOME doesn't answer my request for the specific number and one ex-staffer tells me that he simply “stopped counting” after 30. In the words of another of the recently-departed, “my budget for leaving presents became crazy… Every time anyone asked me to do anything it was: ‘sorry, I’m going to another leaving party’”. 

The question then is ‘why?’ What’s driving them out? This is where the reporting of this piece has proven difficult. A dozen current and former HOME staff were willing to talk to us — most of them off record — and their accounts were broadly identical. Many use extremely strong language — allegations of “bullying”, comparisons to “coercive relationships”, talk of a “culture of fear” and a “toxic working environment” and even statements like this: “It is deeply saddening finding ourselves powerless and bullied into submission”.