LISC’s new director of green initiatives is helping lead a groundbreaking effort to decarbonize the nation’s affordable housing and help low-income communities build resiliency in the face of the harmful impacts of climate change. Here, after personally weathering Hurricane Helene in the intentional “ecovillage” where he lives in North Carolina, Ruark paints a picture of what’s at stake, and how the planet and people can heal together.
Photo above: A “neighborhood” at Earthaven and the house where Sam Ruark lives with his family (center). Images courtesy Earthaven and Sam Ruark.
Sam Ruark is part of a community he calls a “living experiment of human culture and sustainability.” Ruark, who joined LISC earlier this year to lead its Equitable Green Initiatives, lives with his partner and their two children in Earthaven Ecovillage, a settlement of some 120 people on 330 acres in the mountains near Asheville, NC.
Earthaven is off the grid, powered by its own solar and micro-hydro energy systems. Buildings harness the efficiency of green construction methods like passive solar design. Springs provide the community’s water and compost enrich the soils where residents grow a significant harvest of organic food. Many residents are committed to small-space living. They even compost human waste; Ruark’s home has one of the community’s few flush toilets.
Although each household supports itself financially, the ecovillage is structured as a member-run nonprofit with an HOA. Residents share in decision making, contribute their skills and labor, and rely on one another for friendship, learning, and help with everyday needs like child and elder care.
It’s a highly intentional way of life, a concrete example and, for Ruark, a profound experience of how sustainable practices can preserve the natural world and nourish human wellbeing. Ruark brings these insights, along with his decades of professional experience, to his work at LISC helping other American communities claim the benefits of greener, more climate-resilient affordable housing.
And at Earthaven, the benefits of sustainable living were never more evident than in late September, when Hurricane Helene dropped massive volumes of water on western North Carolina. This stunning disaster, the most damaging in North Carolina history, wrecked homes and infrastructure, knocked out power and communications, and killed 43 people in Asheville’s Buncombe County alone.
Six weeks after Helene, we sat down with Ruark to learn more about sustainability—and resiliency.
What were some of the features that protected Earthaven from the worst impacts of Hurricane Helene?
We were very blessed by not losing power or water when so many people in the region did. Our nearest neighbors didn’t have power for two weeks. There are 12 neighborhoods in Earthaven, and the neighborhood I'm in has a solar system that powers a barn and three homes. Because it's solar with a battery, that system will stay up even through a storm like this, so long as it doesn't get hit by a tree, which it didn't. Also, we are blessed to have spring water. Most of the rural areas here are on well water, which needs the electric grid to function. So if you don't have grid power or a generator, you don't have water either. We were able to support some of our neighbors with water and running supplies.
Topography was also important, the fact that we're higher in the watershed helped us. And the founders of this place decided not to build the houses right by the creeks. Here, homes are about 20 to 50 feet in elevation above a creek. There's also been awareness around protecting our homes from fire, so many trees close to houses were already cleared. Most of the houses have gardens or small trees nearby, but not the big trees that fell in the forest and on the roads.
Those big trees did fall across Earthaven’s roads. Was that an access problem?
It took around seven days before we could actually get to Black Mountain or Asheville. Fortunately, we have many people with skills in chainsaws and tractor work. So immediately after the storm, several people started working on clearing the trees from the roads in Earthaven, and myself and a crew of maybe seven or eight went and cleared trees on the one road that leads out of our community. Over the course of this road, there were trees down every 100 yards. We’re clearing and clearing, and finally we get to the top and realize that if we go another quarter mile there was a massive mudslide blocking the road. In fact, there are crews working on clearing that mudslide today, a month and a half later.
It sounds like Earthaven’s cooperative practices are proving incredibly valuable.
Absolutely. One of the coolest experiences was when the storm hit, we knew we're all going to be working together. We divvied up into crews. Some crews would go out and help with taking care of the trees that were down. Some were working on the roads, while some were doing the childcare. There were three adults with this huge group of kids. Another group was cooking for everyone. We had meals twice a day for 10 days, with 80 or 90 of us eating the food together while we were all doing projects. During this time we had a group that put up a GoFundMe site, which raised around $130,000 to support road and bridge rebuilding and the recovery. And we also were applying for grants and reaching out to FEMA.
It took four or five days before we had internet. We have a satellite system that depends on a tower, which lost power in the storm. But a neighbor of ours had a Starlink account, so she moved it down to our council hall and that became the hub for connection. That's where meals and communications were happening, that's how we shared information with the outside world. That's where we were all gathering to figure out who's doing what every day, and that's where the kids were too. That space was such a vibrant spot during the recovery period.
Tell us a little about how these learnings apply to your work at LISC, helping other communities become greener and safer in extreme weather.
The first thing to understand is that whatever FEMA maps show about flooding is outdated, no matter where you are. We had a once-in-30,000 year event, perhaps. And if conditions are correct again, it could happen again next year. So in terms of siting buildings and development, we have to pull it back from rivers to higher ground. Rivers are always changing and will flood, they're always going to get bigger and smaller. We have to site buildings and infrastructure that gives them the space meander and change. In cities if a building is in the flood plain, make sure the first floor is parking with housing on top, so the floodwater wouldn't go into the building itself.
Water, power, food and now internet are things that everyone needs. So renewable and resilient energy systems are crucial. Solar with batteries is great because it's a way to store the power and then have it available when disasters like this strike.
But not every building has to have solar and batteries. We’re looking at building resiliency hubs in places like community centers and schools, hospitals, buildings that are really needed during the immediate aftermath of a storm. Say a community center, for instance, installs solar with battery backup and has rainwater cisterns. That's a place where people can go when they need electricity or need a place to sleep if they've lost their home—they have a place that's got power and water immediately. It becomes this hub for sharing information, finding food, finding resources, connecting with other people, and figuring out what needs to be done. It also provides a hub for people who have capacity to help: “Let's volunteer and go help some people over here that really need the help.”
How can these features be scaled and made economically workable for affordable housing communities, whether apartment buildings or single-family homes?
With the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, for instance, we're going to do as many energy-efficiency upgrades as possible. That reduces the amount of energy that's needed, which drives down the cost to owners and tenants. It also reduces the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and bigger storms. Once you get your energy footprint down, then you install the solar with the battery backup. We must marry solar and storage together for electricity resilience.
Another positive thing is that there are so many excellent rebates and incentives and financing options now, readily available for developers to make the changes in their existing buildings and new construction projects. Achieving net-zero emissions for these buildings is definitely doable with all of these financial and technical resources
For homeowners as well, with renewable energy systems, you're essentially paying for your energy costs upfront. and there are ways to take care of that with financing and incentives. Over time, as the cost of energy from a utility company rises, you save even more. So the economic value proposition of solar energy is great. You actually end up saving money in the long run.
This clean energy movement also creates local jobs. The three pillars of sustainability are environment, equity and people, and the economy. If a gas fired power plant is built, labor come in from out of town, they build this thing, and then they have maybe a few people running it. But with solar, it usually involves many people with more jobs in the community. They live here, they work here, they're putting on solar. It typically takes four days to put a solar system on a home, and with so many homes to solarize it builds in local job stability.
Earthaven’s sustainability seems almost utopian, especially the cooperative social atmosphere that contrasts with our very individualistic society. How hard is that to adopt?
You mentioned the word “utopia.” And I'll just say that Earthaven has its challenges, as well. Living in community, some of your challenges might surface even more directly because you can't just hide out. Some people try that, but really to be here is to engage in the community and to show up.
We call this a living laboratory and educational seed bank for a regenerative human future. It's a grand experiment in culture and sustainability, and we don't have it all right, but we keep trying different things. People are trying all these unique ways of growing, being together, and making a living.
I think humans are tribal creatures. We need each other. And throughout our long history here on planet Earth, we've been living in village culture. It's just in the past few generations that we live really far from our relatives and in separate homes where we don't necessarily communicate with our neighbors.
At Earthaven, there’s not the same loneliness and isolation that you see in some other places. There's also a sense of health and wellbeing here, because we are drinking spring water, we do a lot of work together, and we are physical with our bodies. Much of our food is grown here and it’s healthy, it’s organic. So I'd say people are attracted to Earthaven not only for the environmental solutions, but also the social and health benefits, as a way to meet needs for connection and hope and joy.
To learn more about Earthaven, visit www.earthaven.org.