The best rentals (for passive cash flow) are typically in B/B+ neighborhoods (good demand, low tenant turnover, but not such high PITI that you lose all your rental income to the bank). 

For the rentals, you can get a low interest SBA loan of around 4% (no grants). 

In general if you're going to do conventional financing, you can put down as low as 15% on a single family or 25% on a multifamily.

With a HELOC, you have no extra expense (some HELOC has annual fees, but they are low - like $100 - $200 at most which is negligible) unless you actually pull the cash out.  

@John Trommelen there are lenders that will go as low as 15% down but you will have a higher rate.  

Your revenues seem very low at 53k/year. 

If they pay low rent then they could still be below average for sales but make a profit.

Is the demand just low at this point?

C = lower middle class housing, more multi-family mixed in but decent places, some crime but low-level stuff nothing dangerous or violent.

The issue I find in my area is the rents are very low which make it difficult to work the numbers.