Advice for a renter with low income and 2 kids?

[Sergey Pshenichkin]

Hey BP folks! I'm a longtime fan, first time poster. I actually just bought my first home last year in Montgomery County, Maryland (a condo with a low condo fee using an FHA loan, not a super great deal but very reasonable). I mostly did it to escape the black hole of renting, and I'm now working on increasing my income so that I can start buying rentals. I'm also trying to help my friends and coworkers out too, since most of them are renters in their 20s who'd like a home but don't really know what options are out there... Which brings me to someone I know who we'll call "Jane". She is currently in her late 20s and is supporting 2 kids and renting on nothing but her own income, which isn't much ($30k-$40k per year, W-2 salary). She's been at her current job for more than 2 years so she'd have tax returns. She's building her credit up from nothing. Not sure what her exact score is, but it could be boosted by paying off her $300 credit card (which has a high utilization at the moment). The only items on her credit are the car she bought last summer and the credit card she opened back in August of this year. I know this because we sat down and looked at her credit report in the Mint app (a soft inquiry, and yes I know it only gives data from 1 agency but I don't expect the other 2 to be vastly different). She pays rent through a low income housing program, which ties her rent directly to her income. This means whenever she gets a raise, her rent goes up, so she can't seem to get ahead. So here is our problem: she has no money for a down payment. Normally we could try a low or no down payment option like FHA or USDA, but those usually have a higher monthly payment to offset the low down payment. She's already struggling to make the monthly payments for her rent, so an increase in her monthly payments would be hard to afford. She also doesn't qualify for a VA loan. The best option I could think of for her would be a 203K FHA loan, but I'm worried that the combined costs of the principal, interest, taxes, property insurance, mortgage insurance, plus the repair costs and even potential HOA/Condo fees would be a lot more than she could handle. On top of that, repairing a house with 2 kids living there while working full time would be challenging for anyone, let alone a first time homebuyer. I admit though that I'm not familiar with 203K loans since the loan I used to by home was a standard FHA loan. For reference, she lives in Olney Maryland in Montgomery County, though she's not far from Silver Spring or parts of Gaithersburg and Germantown. She works in Rockville. So, hopefully you folks can see the bind she is in. If anyone out there had any sage wisdom to share, I'd love to hear it and pass it along. Thanks for the help!