Do you help with rent loans?

(Request from Candice in Las Vegas, Nevada) Do you help with rent loans?

Dear Candice,

Personal Financial Network, Inc. is not a direct lender. We are a financial services organization that provided debt management programs to indebted clients for over a decade.

Today we have a much greater emphasis on consumer education in order to help clients help themselves. To accomplish this we work diligently to match clients specific needs, including those that need rental assistance to avoid evictions, with the organizations and government agencies that provide specific programs that can help. The primary objective here is to help clients like you receive rental assistance grants and zero interest or low-interest loans to help pay rent.

The ultimate goal is to help each of you eventually become self-sufficient so that you no longer need to rely on rental assistance programs are grants in order to make ends meet each month. Of course we also recognize that life events can sometimes create a financial hardship, which is why we try to provide as much information as possible to help you get through a temporary financial crisis.

If it is specifically a loan that you are looking for then we recommend contacting a local credit union with an open membership policy to see what types of unsecured personal loans might be available for the purpose of paying rent. These types of loans will require that you have sufficient income before you will qualify.

An alternative to a loan is the rental assistance program operated by HELP of Southern Nevada. This could be a great option if you have had a recent hardship such as a job loss that makes it difficult for you to make your rent payment on time. The organization also operates a Rapid Re-Housing program which utilizes government funds to help you recover from a recent eviction should that occur.

Getting help from one of the community service organizations or local agencies is generally going to be preferred to taking on debt in order to make rent payments. Consider the budget constraints that you will incur in the future if you must pay all of your normal living costs plus a monthly rent payment on top of that. While it may not seem advantageous to be threatened with an eviction, many rental assistance programs prioritize cases in which the tenant has received an eviction notice. If you have received this notice and you should contact your local rental assistance organization immediately so that they may be able to intervene before you are actually evicted.