*First image is an example of what we want, our hopeful new home. Other 4 images images are to show what I am dealing with NOW and am trying to get away from*

My family and I are trying to move into a new home, and the government shutdown has made that so much harder. We need help getting the last of our down payment together so that we can get out of a bad rental situation.

Right now, we are living in a house that I moved into when I was escaping a bad relationship. The people I rent from seemed nice at the start, but after being here for over a year now, I can only call them slumlords: they take ages to fix things, and any repairs they make are half-measures. They have made the space uninhabitable with their neglect, and if I raise concerns, they threaten eviction. Fixing it myself is costly, and for the big stuff (plumbing, electric), the landlord is actively blocking people from working on it; they've told them they can't enter the property. I haven't had hot water in months, which isn't a terribly big deal in Texas summer, but winter is right around the corner and an ice-cold shower can get dangerous. The house also isn't insulated well, making it that much riskier, and something in this place is making us sick.

I want out, I want away from these people, but with the rising costs and restrictions in renting, it made more sense to buy a manufactured home. All the adults in the house are working now, despite the crappy economy, and are putting everything into getting moved to a better situation. We found a broker, she found us a lender, we found a lot to put our home on, we had our deposits and their initial down payment ready to go, and were waiting for the underwriting process to finish. We thought we'd be moved by now and settling into our new home... And then the government shut down.

We qualified for an FHA loan, since we are first-time home buyers, making our down payment only 1%, but since the shutdown, the funding for that program has been wiped out, and so the home we were approved for requires a 20% down payment without it. We are squirreling away as much money as possible, but we are still expecting to be roughly $5k short at the end of this month, even after cutting every cost and extending deadlines on other bills.

I hate asking for help, but we need to be out of here as soon as possible, and I am asking, please help us do it. I can't put my kids through another winter like last year, and we're so close to being free of this place for good. All funds will be used towards down payment of the home, even if exceed goal.