text: A year after he launched his own app and made headlines, Leo Grand is still homeless . On the night he launched his first app, a homeless man predicted that his life was going to change. 'I can work at Google, I can work at SpaceX,' Leo Grand gleefully stated minutes after his carpooling app Trees for Cars went live. 'This will change my life in a magnificent way.' It's been a year and a half since that moment led to Grand and his mentor, Patrick McConlogue, becoming media sensations. But Trees for Cars is no longer available, and Grand is still homeless, Mashable reported. In August 2013 McConlogue offered Grand, the homeless man he saw every day on his walk to work in New York City, a deal: He would either give him $100, or he would teach him how to code. Grand realized he could go through '$100 in a few days' and instead jumped at the opportunity to learn something new that he could then 'turn into something more,' he told Business Insider in 2013. McConlogue provided Grand with daily lessons, as well as a laptop, wireless hot spot, coding books, a solar charger and office space at the start-up where he worked once it got too cold to type outside. Grand, who once said he wasn't 'the average homeless person' and that he considered himself 'eco-friendly', came up with an app designed to get more cars off the road. 'When I first launched my app it was good,' Grand told Mashable this week. 'I was excited, the press was excited, it was just a great moment.' Grand and McConlogue appeared on TV shows, and he says people loved him everywhere and gave him free coffee at restaurants. Being on NBC, he said, was the highlight of his year. 'We got to stay in a nice hotel at Rockefeller Plaza. A nice, swanky hotel. We got the red carpet rolled out in front of us!' he said. But Grand is still living on the streets, and he said the number one question people ask him is why he's still homeless. Grand created Trees and Cars after Patrick McConlogue offered him a deal: $100 in cash on the spot or daily coding lessons. Grand picked the latter, and was also provided a laptop, office space and coding books . But Grand is still living on the streets. He said the number one question people ask him is why he's still homeless . Trees for Cars only made Grand between $10,000 to 15,000 dollars, he said. And McConlogue has since taken a job in San Francisco, although he still meets up with Grand every time he's back in New York. The app is no longer in online stores because Grand does not want to pay for its server space. Grand instead uses the money he made from the app to pay for his storage space. He also keeps some possessions in a shopping cart. He insists that he likes living outdoors, although he said he plans to move into an apartment after he makes his second app. Grand said if he could do it all over again, he would have made a different app the first time around. 'I would've probably come up with a better idea for a mobile application that can generate a ton of revenue,' he told Mashable. For now, Grand said he does not code everyday anymore. He said 'life' is the reason for that. 'I've got the books, I've got the laptop, I've got the office space. I just haven't been able to get over there recently.' Grand, who gets by with welding jobs and worked for MetLife until he lost his job in 2011, once said the most hurtful thing someone could say to him was that he was dumb or not intelligent. 'Homelessness is not a feature of someone or a condition,' McConlogue said. 'It is something that people put a lot of people - in a lot of different situations - into one giant box.' Grand said if he could do it all over again, he would have 'come up with a better ideal' that would have generated more revenue. He said he only made around $10-15,000 with Trees for Cars .
target: Leo Grand was offered a deal: either $100 or lessons in coding from Patrick McConlogue, who passed him on the street every day .
  After daily coding lessons Grand launched carpooling app Trees for Cars .
  Grand said he made $15,000 from the app, which is no longer in stores because he does not want to pay for the server space .
  He said he hasn't found the time to code every day anymore .
  Grand insists he likes living outdoors, but said he should have come up with an idea that made more money .