Its been a nice little income stream for them. 

@Conner Franklin  - @James Rodgers is correct; FHA guidelines still require an income stream to support the monthly obligation on the property: principal and interest, mortgage insurance, homeowners insurance, HOA dues (if applicable), and property taxes

They will look carefully at both the appraisal value and the rental stream on any property you buy. 

When the debts are gone the income stream(s) will remain.You'll want to rethink the hard-money idea.

However, a stream of income is attractive to them, as they look into assisted living. 

The plan is to eventually have a healthy first world income stream whilst living/working somewhere with third world expenses.

I'm not exactly trying to establish a lead stream or start a campaign at this point.

As far as crime, you're in the Chicago area which has more killings a day than a horror movie. 

I help and show people how to use some of their savings to create streams of income by investing in multi-family apartment complexes. 

Once the eviction got started the tenant kept insisting that she did not have to pay or move because she "had hardship" (elderly family member passed away etc.) and would take the cause to court for a dramatic movie worthy legal victory.Her court experience was not quite what she had imagined it would be and we got a ruling in our favor.