They own construction companies in addition to insurance partnerships.

For real estate, this might mean getting your license and learning how to sell (fyi - getting a license does involve costs); breaking deals down for others at no cost; assisting brokers or property managers: finding other ways to offer people valuable services.I really wish you the best.

Check with James Wise's site for his Cleveland LBP requirements summary, it's much more useful than what I can offer as I'm not in the Cleveland market. 

They said that we could get grandfathered into the program and offered the same terms to us.

For example, if you buy for $100k, you will need to document investing an additional $50k min in renovation or otherwise "improving" the property.  

In addition to checking out local crime statistics via county and city websites, you may want to check out this website: https://crimegrade.org/. 

Make a lower offer that reflects more than the additional cost of that problem.

Additionally, there are 16 different versions of a FICO score.

You could offer to clean up junk for free and see if neighbor would want this.

If you know the details for something other states offer please share it here.