Going the traditional route when it comes showing first time home buyers a house to purchase isn't for me.

If you simply mean it is an traditional residential investment loan, no harm no foul.

I don’t think I could qualify for lending through a traditional lender so I need either private money or a hard money loan.

I wasn't able to purchase a multi-family property, but I did a house hack through college in a traditional house.

Unlike the traditional way of buying a home ( 30 year mortgage) you can purchase it using a HELOC.

I know of the traditional routes of going through a bank but I don't believe that is the best option, so I know there are private and hard money lenders but how do I go about finding them and presenting potential deals?

We're looking at traditional 20% down and mortgage for 80%.

@Christian B.

If it's tenant occupied, there's the chance you could have an uncooperative tenant that might make it difficult, but that could happen even with a traditional (non short sale) purchase. 

I have found similar challenges in Utah with the housing market being very expensive so that many of the traditional rules of thumb don't work really well.