I am practically homeless because of my rental history. I wanted to know if I paid off the broken leases (even though the monies will be paid to a collection agency) would this help me gain housing?

I have 3 broken leases.
One broken lease is from 2001 for $1400.00.
2nd broken lease is from 2002 for $1200.00.
3rd lease is from 2005 for $8000.00 dollars.

I am willing to pay for the 1st and 2nd amounts, but the 3rd amount is not affordable. I signed the lease and lived there 1 month because the apartment and neighborhood were awful.

Would renters work with me if I chose to not pay for the 3rd amount?
Would renters work with me if I paid these monies to the collection agencies?
Is there any way I could find out what my rental history looks like?
Thanks,

Ok, There is no secret rental history file ( at least none anyone ever told me about and I rent houses all the time)

You supply them the rental history when you rent.

Now if the people you rented from turned these over to collection companies they may have reported it on your credit history. But a lot of landlords never report amounts to the credit bureaus it is just too much trouble.

So they will know about you from the info you give the, and they contact the landlords you provide them info on. And from your credit report.

Just oweing that money ( even if they don't know who it is from) can be such a bad credit history.

You can run a credit report on yourself and see how those are listed.

I would say that if you start not breaking leases, stay with one place even if there is a reason not to. Get some history of staying in one place.

Or why not merely rent in some property that is just month to month,