But most importantly, they do not need to be paid back.Resources for finding available grants:Grants.govUSA.gov/GrantsNational Institute of HealthSmall Business Administration - GrantsMany grants are highly competitive and tremendously detailed so having as much advocacy, expertise, and support in your corner is critical.

There will typically be a record of multiple court appearances and filings, records of affiliation with tenant advocacy entities (including Legal Aid), records of multiple frivolous Board of Health complaints, etc.

Your membership dues support advocacy at the state level. 

Even tenant advocacy groups are now aware of the practice and telling tenants to ask for money!

Short Term Rental Advocacy Center: They have a lot of current information on short term rental regulations.VRMA blog: Current information and lots on industry trendsAVROA: The American Vacation Rental Owners' AssociationRentals United blog: Rentals United is a channel manager, but they have a fantastic blog on managing your vacation rental.Cottage BloggerTo echo @Maura Paler, Matt Landau has a great blog!

(often with the assistance of well meaning "tenant advocacy" type groups who are normally CLUELESS to the fact that a good deal of their efforts are NOT stopping the proverbial "greedy slumlords" who do exist, but I think in far smaller #'s than many of the anti-landlord crowd imagine and their efforts and waste of money that's either taxpayer $$ via grants, etc or charitable donations and it all goes so often to HELP some grifter sleazebag tenant who's just gaming the system and has done it many times before.

SF has extremely vigilant city inspectors and an equally vigilant tenants advocacy agency.

.:-( http://www.self-sufficiency.org/index.php/housingtheir website says:Rapid Housing ServicesAll shelters and housing programs listed above strive to help residents find and secure permanent affordable housing through access to rental listings, advocacy with landlords, unit inspections, and move in assistance when possible.

And if you choose "wrongly", the specter of lawsuits initiated by tenant-advocacy groups and potentially the Federal Government could corner some landlords into costly defense cases in court.   

They are an organization focused on accessibility (support services, advocacy, etc) and have a Columbia office.