Nice to see a familiar face!  

With a conventional mortgage you spend more money paying off the interest and barely touching the principle.

Otherwise you face a stronger possibility of not receiving payment, given the tenants those properties attract (not sure what you're about to close on).There are several groups you can go to that provide housing/utilities assistance besides Richmond Redevelopment who is associated with the GoSection8 website.  

Of course most of what was left was mainly bare property as the houses ended up in the bay or twenty miles north in Anuhuac.

Start attending some local real estate clubs and meet lenders face-to-face, who have an interest in helping you.

Complete your profile, get references, and put your face in front of as many people that you can.

But not all of them are and (let's face it) they all have a fiscal interest in you doing a deal. 

But of course, this does mean having to work with someone I barely know, in a more intimate way than a hard money lender would require.

If people want the cold hard reality to smack them in the face read about Ted Turner, Walt Disney, etc. and how many times they failed and were told no over and over.

For a lot of houses, that's a bare minimum of $25,000.