I am a lone parent who need to rent a house

maybe if you hadnoted messed up your credits you wont be in this situation!

ever thoughted about that?If you cannot contribute to topic,you can sure bugger off and leave this forum alone!!! Cajunbulldog

Maybe you should work on fixing your bad credit. This will be a good move in the long term. How much do you owe in total? There are dmp companies to handle the debts with your creditors and negotiate a lower repayment plan. Once you get a few accounts paid with your creditors, your credit will improve and finding a house will become easier. Speak with a debt counselor for the options in your repayment plan.

Wow Sherry you must not have ever had something happen to you that made you not be able to pay some of your bills. Bad things happen to some people. Not everyone is perfect or has perfect credit.


Michael depending on where you live, most places will do a credit and background check before they have you sign a lease. If you know that your credit is bad you will need to explain to them why, so they are not shocked when they see it. If they know that you have had a steady job and are honest about your credit report sometimes they will give you a chance. But with that chance comes a price, they just might have you put down a bigger security deposit.

But also if you are a single parent and depending on your income you may be eligable for renters assistance, or sub. housing. You may want to contact your county to see if there are any programs out there to help you.

I wish you well on your new home search.

Michael ~ puddlejumper is right, there are many programs out there that might be able to help you with some housing assistance. Depending on your income, you may also qualify for other types of assistance too, which would help you by freeing up a little bit of your money to work on your credit problems. I wish you luck and hope everything works our for you.

To Sherry ~ I hope that you never have to experiece some of the things that others of us had to, which caused credit ratings to go down. Don't condemn someone until you have walked in their shoes! I doubt that you are as "perfect" as you sound. Actually you sound like a trouble maker, so go trouble some one else other than the people needing help and guidance here!

Michael,
There are local county organizations that will assist you in getting housing. However, have you thought about instead of renting, there are other ways of obtaining housing. Such as the fannie may foundation. Go to the Fannie May foundation webpage and see what you need to do to put in an application. Once you hook up with them you can donate your time as repayment. You will be obligated to hours to work off the debt. Good thing is they don't all have to be hours you work, could be neighbors, friends or relatives, etc. Check it out, you could be a home owner instead of a renter. Just a thought.

And to add to Fedup's good advice-
Another great program you might want to look at is Habitat for Humanity, if they are in your area. What they do is take lowincome families and help them actually build their own homes. There is a screening process and you do need to donate sweat equity, but you are supervised by trained building professionals who are volunteering their time and are with you every step of the way. Very worthwhile--AND you get a new home to boot! Good luck to you.

Forgot about that one kscornell, actually I think fannie may is a low interest loan and you are right, sweat equity for habitat for humanity. Both worth checking out.