There is a critical housing shortage on Fort Peck Indian Reservation. My sweet, gentle mother-in-law, Joni, is losing her apartment of 10+ years... and is now facing homelessness. We are raising money to buy a small home for Joni so that she never has to face homelessness again. In a climate where the temperature reaches -30 degrees below 0 in the winter, housing is a life or death issue.

Who is Joni?

Joni is an elderly Native American (Chippewa-Cree) woman from Fort Peck Indian Reservation. She converted to Islam over one year ago. She is the only Muslim on her reservation, and has limited access to resources. She loves Allah, reading Qur'an, and learning about the deen (religion) from me and my husband. 

Joni is a survivor. She has experienced homelessness and unimaginable poverty throughout her life. Despite her struggles, she is a remarkably good woman and raised my husband and his brother into two upstanding, good-hearted men. My husband and I cannot afford to help her on our own, and our wish is to help Joni live out the rest of her days in security. A devoted grandmother, Joni has many happy memories in her apartment with her grandson, Killian. A new home will allow Joni and her family to stay together and, inshaAllah, make new memories together. 

​What is life like on Fort Peck Indian Reservation?

Most people don't know what it's like to live on an Indian reservation. Most people don't think about Native Americans because they don't come across them in their personal lives, but, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, where Joni raised my husband and brother-in-law, is very real. So are the disproportionate rates of suicide, addiction, health disparities, homelessness, and violence. There is a housing shortage across the reservation, power outages in the wintertime, and it's not uncommon for people to freeze to death. My husband says it's like living in the Global South (a third world country), right here in the United States. 

It is impossible to discuss Joni's story or make reference to Native Americans without addressing the root of the problem. Ever since settlers first landed on this continent, the Federal government has waged war against indigenous lives and cultures and has carefully maintained an ongoing genocide against the Native Americans.  

There is no shortage of supporting evidence to demonstrate the success of the Federal government's genocide against Native Americans; hundreds of years of massacres, forced removal, poverty, waves of foreign plagues, the atrocities of the boarding school system, the erasure of Native languages and identity... And now, perhaps most ironically (an irony surely not lost on the reader), an indigenous woman, a diaspora in her own country, is about to lose her housing. 

​Help protect a vulnerable new Muslim from homelessness

​Please give generously to help Joni attain housing security. My husband and I do not have the funds to help her on our own. Joni deserves our help, as she is a vulnerable Muslim woman.  As the only Muslim on the reservation, Joni also represents Islam and makes da'wah in her community by setting an example, by living according to the sunnah. We have a duty as Muslims to aid other Muslims, and we have a duty to help the oppressed, especially the indigenous who are oppressed in their own ancestral homelands. 

I, Nourah AbuShaban, am organizing this campaign on behalf of my mother-in-law, Joni.  All funds raised will be collected in my personal account, and I attest that I will secure housing for Joni, God willing.