No credit history, need home equity loan.?

I own my home free and clear – value at 150k, paid cash three years ago. I have no credit cards, no car loans, and have paid cash for everything for the past 15 years… therefore, I have NO credit – not terrible, not excellent, just NONE reported. I tried to get a 30k home equity loan for personal needs, but was denied because of “no reported credit”. I have an income of about 2500 per month (yucky) and I have no debt. Do I have additional options? I don’t want to take a 1st mortgage out, please tell me that this isn’t my only option.
As a follow up – this is pretty time sensitive. Want to have 30-60 days to establish credit. I just never believed that it would be a problem since I own my home.