Glen Hansard has spoken passionately about Apollo House.
The Frames singer took part in an intimate interview with actor Jason Segel in LA, in support of The Ireland Funds America.
The Oscar winner performed hits like Falling Slowly, as he was joined on stage by How I Met Your Mother star Jason, who interviewed him about his life from a busker to an award-winner.
In the middle of his interview, Glen spoke about Apollo House and the homeless situation, telling the audience about how he wanted to change things in Ireland.
“I found myself this year for some reason, feeling a little bit more – wouldn’t it be great if we did something or raise money, or you know and then I met with some old friends and we were talking – Damien Rice, Damian Dempsey, sitting in bars talking about the homeless situation.
“And super naively, and I’m being really honest here, super naively I thought ‘sure if we took over a NAMA building’
“You’ve got people without homes and homes without people, so why don’t we take one of those buildings,” he said.
“I thought the government would say, ‘you know lads that’s a great idea’… I thought there would be some understanding,” he explained.
Glen then welcomed Brendan Ogle on stage, who he said was the force behind Apollo House.
Brendan told guests that he was “angry” with what Ireland had become.
“It’s been a rough few months,” Brendan admitted to the crowd.
“I’m just burning with anger…about the state of my country. I’m from a great place, Ireland’s a great place…there’s really great people working hard all over the world to promote our country.
“But there’s more to it than that, there’s two Irelands…there’s the Ireland that’s doing really, really well ‘recovery Ireland’.
“And then there’s the rest and we’ve got a lot of problems. When I met this man (Glen) I saw an opportunity that was put to me.”
Brendan went on to state that Irish people and the Irish government needed to come together to have an “honest conversation” about the homeless crisis in Ireland, and spoke emotionally about the journey of Apollo House.
Stars that attended the event in Hollywood included actress Amy Huberman and Chris O’Dowd’s wife – author Dawn O’Porter.
Glen is in town to receive an honorary award at the Oscar Wilde Party – hosted in JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot office in Santa Monica.
