All He Wants for His 85th B-day is to House People

Rod Rylander plans to spend his 85th birthday working on the affordable, eco-friendly housing prototype he designed to ease housing insecurity and climate change.

And he’s building it with his bare hands.

Last year, Rod Rylander did something that blew a lot of people’s minds. He sold his house, bought 10-acres of land in the desert, picked up a shovel, and started building a house—by hand!

It's not just any house. His aim is to demonstrate how anyone can own a home, land, and gardens, and supply its water and power, for under $50,000. His message: If an 85-year-old man can do it, you can too!

Once he's done, he'll document the design and methods, create a teaching model, and then build another one. Then, a community. Then, a movement. He aims to teach his model through hands-on, experiential learning. Then he'll train others to teach it.

"I believe in living as an example rather than telling people how to live," he says. "If I produce examples, then people can take them, leave them, or adapt them to their conditions."

After completing the prototype house, Rod intends to apply permaculture methods to grow food, capture rainwater, and restore this 10-acres closer to its natural state. He envisions a community of vernacular homes and permaculture gardens in the temperate New Mexico climate, with abundant sunshine for solar power, natural materials for rock walls, and wide open vistas.

This is Rod’s innovative and practical solution to the overlapping problems of housing insecurity, climate change, and social isolation. It's especially designed to help elders, veterans, and single moms. Rod's approach is to use the most natural, simple, affordable, and accessible materials and methods to quickly cut through the barriers and get people housed, fed, and connected in a supportive community of peers.

This isn't Rod's first such project. He has been building affordable, sustainable dwellings his whole life, starting in the Peace Corps, and then in Texas, Belize, and North Carolina. Each time, his social change mission, his passion, and his gentle mentorship attracts teams of volunteers, eager to learn natural and vernacular building, permaculture, and other homesteading skills.

Ark of Albion, built by Rod with locals in Belize

Hobbit House, built by Rod and work exchangers in North Carolina

Balcony of house built by Rod with family in Philippines

At the age of 85, nobody would blame Rod for slowing down and living out the rest of his life in the comfort of the natural earthen home he built for himself in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. But Rod isn’t one to rest on his laurels. He is a man on a mission, dedicated to making a difference. He still has abundant energy, talent, and leadership to offer the world.

Instead of slowing down, Rod is an unstoppable force. Just one month after starting his prototype, Rod had set up temporary living quarters, installed solar panels, powered the water well, and started building the model house. By September, he had dug a foundation and stacked the rock walls. By October, he raised three walls and the roof. Once his model is complete, he intends to invite others to join him, help others build their own, and form a small community.

Rod was made for this work. He has spent most of his years on the planet learning, applying, and teaching skills in community formation, natural and vernacular building, permaculture, and conservation. He grew up on a farm, studied agriculture and social ecology in college, served as a government agricultural agent with the Peace Corps, owned a sustainable building and construction company in Texas, and has built natural, vernacular buildings and Permaculture gardens in Belize, North Carolina, Texas, and beyond. He has published writings on sustainability and has presented technical papers in the US, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Nepal.

Housing and Food Insecurity Are Growing

There has never been a more pressing time to find innovative solutions to the housing crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic raised public awareness about— and deepened—the severity of the overlapping housing and food security crises in the U.S. This year’s State of the Nation’s Housing 2023 report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies paints a stark picture of record unaffordability, near-record housing shortages, and major barriers to first-time homeownership. Between February 2020 and February 2023, home prices jumped 37.5 percent. Over the longer term, home prices have more than doubled since 2010.

Between March 2022 and March 2023, payments on the median-priced home shot up from $2,500 to $3,000 as the annual interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages jumped from 4.2 percent to 6.5 percent. The result was a 22 percent annual decline in the number of mortgages originated to first-time homebuyers in 2022, including a year-over-year drop in the fourth quarter of nearly 40 percent, as over 2.4 million potential homebuyers were priced out of homeownership.

We cannot wait for government programs to bring us affordable, eco-friendly housing models that connect the dots between climate disruptions and how we build and live. None exist that support people in collaborating and sharing land, equipment, and materials for mutual thriving. And none are designed to help people grow their own food and regenerate the land on which they live.

Visionaries like Rod and projects like his are showing us novel ways to house people affordably — and sustainably.

The world is learning that innovative social change models developed by individuals and small teams are often as effective— and sometimes more effective—than large, slow-moving government and NGO projects. That’s because the individuals behind them can implement and innovate quickly and with agility. They bring life experience that meaningfully informs them of the needs of the people they aim to help and the problems they aim to solve. And their projects are more often easily and affordably replicable and scalable.

Not everyone has to be like Rod Rylander. The rest of us can donate to help make the model project a success and support the training and education that will bring it to others.

Team of helpers, working on the New Mexico prototype

We have seen what Rod can do, and we are confident he can manifest his vision—with your help. We are calling upon our friends, networks and all advocates for safe, affordable, eco-friendly housing to donate as generously as you can to bring this affordable, eco friendly community housing model into the world.

Let’s get behind Rod and his mission with everything we have.

Donations will cover the cost of materials, supplies, equipment, and any outside labor needed to complete the first model home and start new ones, as well as to conduct training and education, document the model, and assist others. The project is estimated to cost $100,000, including infrastructure and shared equipment. Each home is projected to cost $50,000 or less.

Not many of us can match the energy, creativity, and productivity of this 84-year-old social change maker. But we can certainly back him. Please donate and share today.