Apollo House - Gone but not forgotten

Apollo House on Tara Street in Dublin city centre, seized by citizens to
house the homeless in December of last year.

Hard to believe that it's March already, isn't it? Apollo House has most likely left our minds at this stage. The media have certainly moved on to the other big stories of the day, namely the Garda whistle-blowing controversy, the leadership race for Fine Gael and Donald Trump.

There was a fantastic documentary about the 'Home Sweet Home' project on TV3 last week. It was filmed throughout the group's occupation of Apollo House and it profiles the decisions they made, the ideals behind the campaign and the public reaction to their actions. There are contributions from the figures behind the campaign such as trade union representative Brendan Ogle, musician Glen Hansard and director Jim Sheridan.

It was an incredibly daring undertaking, for sure. The act directed a huge amount of media attention to the gravity of the homelessness situation in the city. Its timing before Christmas certainly struck a chord with many. There's some interesting commentary about the campaign in this article from The Irish Times. Some labelled those behind the movement as martyrs, while others deemed them to be mere attention-seekers. Whatever your views are on the topic, this is a wonderful documentary and the story is told in a very poignant way.

I think that the campaign was a refreshing deed of activism in what can be perceived to be a passive and apathetic society. The notion of occupying a NAMA-owned building and to provide accommodation to the homeless was quite unprecedented.

Homelessness is a tragic problem, but in my opinion it is an incredibly complex problem. There are a myriad of social issues contributing to the level of homelessness on Ireland's streets today. The lack of housing supply is only one of them.

Here'd the documentary: http://www.tv3.ie/3player/show/1132/0/0/

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