I am having a similar (same) problem with Apache on Redhat 7.0 on my virtual host.
The main site works /var/www/html.
the virtual site works when i move the root directory of the virtual site to /var/www/html2.
but when i move the virtual site to /home/username/www/html i get that 403 Frobidden - you don't have permittion to access / directory error message.
I too have tried messing with permissions on the folder.
I would love to know what the problem was, more specifically what you did to solve it. I am relatively new to unix/linux so go easy on me