installing pysqlite on machine without root access/yum

I am trying to install pysqlite on my local python 2.7 installation with pip and am getting the error

src/connection.h:33:21: error: sqlite3.h: No such file or directory

Which from googling would be fixed by installing the sqlite3-dev package. This is not an option.

I have a local installation of sqlite3 at ~/bin/. I have the sqlite3.h file in the folder it was installed from. How can I point pip to it? I have tried putting it in ~/lib/ where the libsqlite3 libraries are.