How I Built Community while Living Off the Grid

Four years ago, I started living off the grid in Arizona’s Mojave Desert. Today, I lead a county-wide coalition to fight mental health stigma in the fifth largest county in the United States. So, how did I go from living 35 miles from the closest incorporated city to leading a group of mental health advocates across my county? It all started with a simple decision to infiltrate spaces where I thought my skills, values, and expertise might be both helpful and appreciated.

Living off the grid in Arizona

Let’s go back a few years to my second full winter living off the grid in Arizona. At this point, my partner and I had decided we loved the area and wanted to eventually build a house on the property. We wanted to live there at least 6 months out of the year, if not longer. With that decision came the need for two things:

A septic system permitted by the county
A community

Installing an Off-Grid Septic System

We went back and forth a lot regarding whether to install our own system, or hire a professional. In the end, we decided we’d probably save money (and a lot of headaches) in the long-run by hiring a professional. So, we called up the local septic guy, Guthrie, and scheduled a site visit to start the process. In the end, having a professional do the job saved us a lot of back and forth with the county. Guthrie knew exactly how to get the system permitted, including submitting appropriate percolation tests and plans to the county.

It cost us $7,500 in the end to have a 1,000 gallon concrete septic tank and leach field installed. Having a septic system didn’t just mean we had our own RV dump on the property now, it also meant we could apply for an RV permit to legally reside on the property for 6 months at a time. The septic system was also the first step for drafting building plans for our house, something that is coming soon—so stay tuned!

@applied_worldwide We broke ground on our septic! #offgirdliving #offgridhomestead #deserthomestead #septictank #septicinstall #leachfield #fyp #homesteadingtiktok #septicsystems ♬ Honeymoon Phase – Eazy & Slip.stream

Building Community while Living Off the Grid

If you’ve been following our blog for any time now, you likely know we are able to sustain ourselves while living off the grid thanks to our remote digital media and consulting business, Applied Worldwide. Once we decided to officially establish a home in Arizona, I decided it was time to embed our business into the surrounding communities. I always dreamed of using my skills as a sociologist to make communities more equitable. Suddenly, I found myself in one of the least educated counties in the country with the highest opioid overdose death rate in the state and saw an opportunity to put my expertise to work.

Putting myself Out There

It all really started with reaching out to organizations that seemed to share my value-system and learning everything I could about how they met the community’s needs, as well as their own needs as an organization. The first organization I made contact with was Postpartum Support International – Arizona. PSI-AZ is a statewide organization with a mission to “promote awareness, prevention and treatment of mental health issues related to childbearing in every county and tribal community statewide.” Knowing their mission along with the maternal mortality patterns in the state, I saw connecting with them as an opportunity to expand resources for rural parents who were now my community.

Through connecting with PSI-AZ and becoming somewhat of their representative for Mohave County, I had the opportunity to connect with organizations serving my local communities. The first local organization I connected with was First Things First, an “essential leader and partner in creating a family-centered, equitable, high-quality early childhood system that supports the development, well-being, health and education of all Arizona’s children, birth to age 5.” Through my introduction to FTF, I was invited to attend their “Mind Hive” series where they gathered representatives from local organizations offering community resources.

Through this series, I was invited to start tabling community baby showers across the county to share PSI-AZ’s resources with our rural communities. Through tabling the community baby showers, I was then invited to host a PSI-AZ table at the women’s health fair hosted by the only non-profit health system in the county. There, I was able to finally meet some fellow researchers and PhDs in my community who truly valued my background in medical sociology as an asset to the community. I now serve on that health system’s Institutional Review Board.

Leading a County-wide Coalition while Living Off the Grid

While attending meetings for FTF’s series I also learned about the community health improvement plan (CHIP) workgroups forming throughout the county. These groups formed as a direct result of community feedback during the latest county-wide community health needs assessment. I asked about attending the next gathering, showed up, and officially joined the Stigma Training CHIP group. Excited to finally be finding a community of like-minded individuals in a county where—to put it lightly—my progressive outlook on society is the minority, I quickly took on the role of leading this CHIP group.

Only seven months into my journey, that leadership role has culminated in organizing regular group meetings, seeking opportunities to fund our programing ideas, and disseminating information about the free stigma training workshops we were able to offer. We now have representatives from nearly every major community in the county, including the Hualapai Reservation, helping shape our groups’ focus and work. Next week, the county’s department of public health is piloting our Stigma Café program—adapted from the Death Café concept introduced by Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz.

Reflecting on the Process

As I write down the process that led me to not only finding, but also building community while living off the grid, I find myself in awe of it all.

I started my off-grid journey in isolation, with only my partner and cat to connect with. I often craved the support and camaraderie of a community and worried I would never have that If I continued pursuing this off-grid lifestyle. Yet, as soon as I made the straight-forward decision to simply put myself, my knowledge, and my skill sets out there, I was met with open arms and learned living off the grid doesn’t have to come with isolation from community. In fact, it can be the catalyst for building the exact community you’ve been dreaming of.