include PHP script from under the user directory

I want

/home/someapi
/home/useraccount

include('/home/someapi/somescript.php');

or

include('somescript.php');

usable from all accounts while keeping basic security so that users can't access files inside other users directories.

If it helps, I own the VPS.

Any ideas?

 

What I've done:

Gone into the PHP config screen and set open_basedir to "/home/mai_api/" (without quotes),

Gone into the security center, "Tweak PHP open_basedir Security" and enabled it (oops, that should have been enabled already...),

Put a test.php in /home/mai_api/test.php and tried calling it from a user account. It still says "open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/home/mai_api/test.php) is not within the allowed path"

 

Just double-checked EasyApache, and I don't have mod SuPHP compiled in. Should I rebuild with that?