[greekbeast]

This is certainly a disturbing reality of living in the West: that masajid are run as private property of an organization with an exclusive membership, rather than the house of Allah for all humanity.

Sunni Student 786,
the circumstances surrounding your community masjid have been common in masajid in various other Muslim communities. One such solution was for the community to form a social services which purchased and ran a small house where homeless, ex convicts, and addicts might reside.
Incidently, the social services "resident house" in one Florida community was burnt down by a disgruntled transient who apparently didn't get along.
In another community, a Muslim brother who was being assisted lashed out and attacked a shaykh, my dear friend. He had diabetes and was elderly, but this 'brother' attacked him because he didn't want to be restricted from doing something on masjid property (eg.sell his products at the door of the masjid).

(the shaykh suffered a broken arm and the "brother" was arrested and sent to prison).



The reality in America is there are truly good, decent people in desperate conditions and are homeless.
And there are people struggling to do good but fall into bad things.
And then there are permanently transient people who have adopted a counterculture lifestyle which almost amounts to abandoning contemporary civilization, whether they are ill, or not.

For some years I worked as a paramedic part time which placed me in contact with this permanent transient population in Florida.
Many commute between northern cities during the summer down to Florida in the winter, where the wather is milder.
I met one who jumped on and rode a freight train from New York to Florida each year. Like in a Steinbeck novel.


This transient lifestyle is often seen as antisocial, anticivilizational. People don't normally hold jobs, don't maintain their health, don't usually recognize customs or even laws, and live in tents which can be moved at a moment's notice. Many suffer from mental illnesses and severe chronic health conditions, including infectious and contagious diseases. Governments are unable to effectively deal with these transient communities, as they often congregate and set up camps in vacant forested lots out of the way, but in access to the rest of society.

Muslim communities have to discern with whom they will deal and by which rules and how. Indeed, in Florida several masajid have been broken into and attempts were made to steal donations.