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Chicago Housing For Single Mothers Article
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Types Of Low Income Single Mother Housing Options
from:In looking for low-income single mother housing options, there are the conventional routes, and the unconventional. If you are a mother in need of low-income housing, make sure you look into all your options to determine what is best for your family.
Public Housing, Subsidized Housing, Or Housing Vouchers
These are the conventional routes to obtain low-income housing by going to an agency that provides some sort of housing assistance. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has information on many conventional manners of obtaining low-income single mother housing. However, these are not the only options.
The Return Of The Extended Family
It used to be the extended family was conventional and the nuclear family was an oddity. Times have changed but the situation for many low-income families hasn't. It's still more economical for single mothers to have some sort of built-in support system at home than relying on handouts from public assistance. Whether that support system is a live-in elderly relative or sharing a home with relatives, it reduces housing costs and increases potential support for a single mother. It may not be a popular low-income single mother housing option, but it still is the most stable family situation.
Owning Your First Home
A single mother may think owning her own home is out of her reach. The fact is owning a home has many added tax advantages that increase her take home pay. In addition, there are a variety of low-income single mother housing programs geared towards matching or granting down payments for a new home. The caveat is that the single mother must have a good income to support the mortgage payments and if her credit has been damaged, that also needs to be repaired.
However, if a single mother has the conventional option to own her own home, the choice really is a no-brainer. It establishes better credit for her and builds equity as she continues to raise her children. With so many more programs available not only to assist in buying a new home, but also some build them for this segment of the population like Habitat for Humanity, then it is a very wise financial move for a single mother to jump on the home buying bandwagon.
Single Mother Co-Housing
If there are problems with owning a home on your own, there are services to match single mothers together for co-housing. In this case, there would be two signers on the housing note and both mothers would own the home, but there would be two incomes to pay the mortgage. This option for low-income single mother housing is fairly new and would need to be investigated fully. One would have to have contingency plans for if one mother lost a job, or became ill. But, it might not be any different than today's middle-class traditional families.