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A Christmas dinner table set up in Apollo House on Sunday. Home Sweet Home
Home Sweet Home
Group behind Apollo House occupation raises €160,000 from public donations
Home Sweet Home took over the Dublin building earlier this month for use as homeless accommodation.
THE HOME SWEET Home group has now raised almost €160,000 as part of its campaign to combat homelessness in Ireland.
A GoFundMe page for Home Sweet Home, set up just two weeks ago, passed the €150,000 mark in recent days.
People have been donating amounts of between €5 and €100 to the group over the Christmas period.
“All your generous donations will be drawn down by the Irish Housing Network, who are one of the groups helping to run the Home Sweet Home campaign,” a message on the page says.
All donations will go directly towards the costs of running the current action, and any excess will go directly into a campaign that ends homelessness in Ireland.
Singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, one of a number of high-profile figures backing the campaign, has said that excess funds may be donated to other charities.
Apollo House
Home Sweet Home, which was co-founded by high-profile anti-water charges activist and trade unionist Brendan Ogle, occupied Apollo House in Dublin on Thursday 15 December, and have been using the multi-storey building as an accommodation centre for the homeless.
The Irish Housing Network, a broad coalition of different far-left grassroots housing organisations, is one of the groups behind the occupation. Alongside Hansard, singer Hozier and film director Jim Sheridan, are also backing the effort.
The occupiers have been told by the High Court to vacate the building by 11 January. The order was granted after injunction proceedings were taken by receivers of the building, Mazars.
The group has been inundated with donations of food, clothes and other items since moving into Apollo House. About 70 people were served with Christmas dinner at the Tara Street building on Sunday. About 40 people slept there over the Christmas period.
In a Facebook post, Home Sweet Home said that from today they were looking for volunteers for their security, maintenance and cleaning and support teams.
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