Answer: -Clean up your credit first. Get copies of your credit reports and dispute charges or pay off some of your debt. It is not worth getting a loan if your credit is bad. Chances are you may not be able to pay the loan back due to the extremely high interest rates. Check the websites for your county and city. The county I live in offers no interest loans and grants to a good majority of the city for home improvements. You usually have to live in certain parts of your town and at times your income has to be low. In my city, the income requirements are based on 50-80 percent of the mean household income. It is at least worth checking out. to see an example of one of these programs, click on the link provided. It is for the city of Wichita, KS. I also provided a link for New York City's home rehabilitation program. -Don't do it. Don't believe the hype the economy is getting better and the feds have it under control. It's getting worse. Now is the time for you to get the bad credit ironed out and build a good credit. Everything is going to get harder and worse. The last thing you need is more money to pay back when the times get harder.