This manual is mainly put together to help deal with working out inexpensive, effective, and acceptable housing schemes for homeless families in Kerala. Perhaps much of the content of the manual may be of relevance to many other parts of India. In Kerala, we have no deserts and no big black cotton soil areas, but it is hoped that some sections of the manual will be of help to anyone planning to build small houses on small plots for homeless families. Some of the materials may also be of help when rebuilding houses that have been destroyed by cyclones, floods, earthquakes landslides, and so on. Almost everything in the manual has been used and tested by the writer over the past half a century in India.