Haustoria House is a safe and inclusive space to build a sense of community and Home for any and all mixed indigenous and traditionally practicing folx (within a strictly anti-assimilation decolonized approach). We are working toward NP and potentially affordable housing designation, but have already hosted a number of community resources, services, and events within either grassroots or private e
ducational structure since 2021. Haustoria House is also the general name for the property/space in Missoula, MT, that forms the "base of operations" for Shor'esh- an international Roots-Based Integration (RBI) initiative. This “space-based” initiative started in 2020 to extricate the RBI paradigm/project from it's largely academic past, and apply it within a wider-reaching, genuinely inclusive & accessible health&wellness, education, service, and community-building context. While many “interfaith” collectives recognize a need for safe, shared housing due to the nature of various “religious” needs, there are no housing resources in Missoula for minorities that simply have ethno-cultural traditions that are not only home-based, but are often difficult or even impossible to practice outside of a communal context. These “material” traditions thus constitute a level of “basic need” for many minorities in housing that is unrecognized and therefore entirely unprotected within the US system. Haustoria House is deeply rooted within an embodied education model- AKA “non-colonized pedagogy” (or “practice-based knowledge”). Qualifying residents* of the housing collective are empowered toward passion-driven “income access” by both collectively managing, and individually utilizing home-based spaces and resources at a professional level toward ethical (and all-bodies accessible) self-employment. In turn, this teaches hands-on skills to integrate our own basic needs (bio-psycho-socially and systemically) with each other toward hosting and providing resources, services, and products to the wider community, while supporting ourselves as well as our own traditionally-practicing local communities. This allows us to overcome the barriers we regularly face in this system and society, at both an individual and collective scale. Practice-based needs across indigenous & traditional cultures at a direct level are often different, but by nature do not directly contradict. While many can be restrictive in a housing context, they are rarely limiting to the actual practice-based needs of others, which allows us to facilitate true "intersectional inclusivity" in the space. Above all else, Haustoria House is a place for ALL to find community and healing through activities and events based in arts, gardening, body-positivity, DIY, ceremony/gatherings, skill-sharing, and an abundance of other resources to heal, empower, and protect what “community” truly means within our traditional, non-colonized backgrounds. So, while we are largely informed by mixed indigenous knowledge/practice, decolonization, and relational accountability toward serving (and protecting) the mixed indigenous/traditional population, we invite everyone and anyone to become a respectful part of our community- our Home.
