What’s your experience been like with traditional lenders vs. private options like ours?

A good broker maintains relationships with various funding sources, including individual investors, investment groups, and financial institutions.

You are dealing with 2 immovable objects in HUD and Chase and you would be better off with a mortgage broker that would have options. 

If you can live for free and only pay utilities AND buy an investment property, that would be ideal in terms of savings and cash flow.If you can't stay and your parents want to make some money on that property, then yes, house hacking would be your best option especially since you don't want the best place in the multi.

Something to keep in mind is the lending options change when in LLC, so leverage owner occupied loans for Refi/HElOC etc go away once you move out.  

I’m exploring all options to try to save myself.

Killeen will have the most options for you.

There's no true data source that aggregate all the data that you look for (at least to my knowledge).

The other option would be diving deep with a bookkeeper to have them help run more updated books than just monthly.

It'll restrict that cash flow, but unlock a nice option for the family.