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On the second floor of a miniscule home in Jamaica, four Spartan bedrooms stretch along the hallway. They have 10 beds in total, and since April 2008 have been the temporary home to more than 30 women down on their luck.

The rooms are the guts of the Islamic Circle of North America Relief USA’s Temporary Housing for Women program. It provides temporary shelter for women left homeless because of troubled finances, personal difficulty or trouble assimilating, and is open to any woman in need.

The program was initially founded by Abdus Salaam Musa in 2001 and helped Muslim women exclusively.

“The number of homeless women was growing for various reasons at the time,” Musa said. “I found myself driving around in the middle of the night looking for anyone willing to take in these women.”

Previous work with the Salvation Army planted the thought in Musa’s mind, and encouragement from a local Imam helped bring the program to life. But in 2006, ICNA scrapped the program.

But need still existed. So ICNA’s media relations guru and Pakistani television reporter Moviz Asad Siddiqi gave the program a second life, but with a few twists.

The program would be open to women of any race or creed and have few discriminating criteria.

“If we’re going to help, we might as well help everyone,” Siddiqi said.

The requirements to enter the shelter are few. A woman must be in a condition of need for housing, a U.S. citizen and free of tuberculosis.

Siddiqi said some have come with mental problems or dodgy histories and he made the difficult decision of turning women down. But most often, they turn down domestic violence cases for the simple reason of safety. Spouses often come after their wives and create unwelcome situations.

But the benefits for the women can be great, Siddiqi said.

ICNA provides them with a bed, does their laundry and gives them a daily allowance. The organization also helps with job placement or training courses in various studies. All are provided in the hopes of opening a door to the greater world, particularly an American society hard to break into.

“The best outcome is to get them stable, get them housing and have a support system in place for them,” Musa said.

He added the program will only be more necessary in the future.

“I would believe there is going to be a greater need, given the economic situation,” he said. “We’ve already seen it. Every day we’re getting two or three cases, whereas before it wasn’t as much.”

Most of the 30 women that have passed through the shelter have left after 6 months. Some stay one day. But the first woman has had the longest lasting impact.

A messy divorce left her alone, her husband taking their children. Sent back to Pakistan, she grew ill with tuberculosis. Upon returning to the United States, she applied to stay at the shelter.

Siddiqi was skeptical.

“She was so shy and quiet, at first I didn’t believe her,” he said.

But with all loose ends settled, Siddiqi said she eventually assimilated so well, she oversees the temporary housing program and is his direct connection to the women.