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I wouldn't be surprised if someone has asked a similar question but I haven't seen it yet so here we go.

I am considering going to school out of the area, which will mean that I will have to find somewhere to live (likely an apartment) near school. If one is considering solely using financial aid money (both scholarships and loans) to pay for the entire cost of attendance, how does one go about providing a landlord first month's rent/deposit(s) before the financial aid refund?

In short,

Person moves to new city week before school starts.
Person owes money for rent immediately.
Person has to wait at least two weeks for financial aid refund.
Person has no other way of paying first month's rent until refund comes in.

What does one do to either get the money earlier (or hold off the landlord until the money comes in)?

I would do two things:

1. Get a part time job. Highly recommend Uber if you own a car. Not great from a long-term career perspective, but great as a way to make some money quickly. You can make about $150-200 each weekend night if you drive from like 6 pm to 2 am. Work the 4 or 5 weekends before you move and you should have rent plus a few hundred bucks for groceries covered.

2. Talk to your school. You're surely not the first person this has been a problem for. They may have some kind of emergency loan program.

As previous poster said, getting a job to make enough money to cover you is the best option, and talking to your school is a good idea.

Not sure if this is an option for you, but this is the kind of situation where you might also consider asking friends/family to lend you the money, given that it is such a short term loan and repayment is guaranteed. I have been both a beneficiary and a benefactor of such loans in similar situations (needing to buy books before loans come through, etc etc) and people are generally willing, even friends who are just "sort of" close. ETA: Unless you are in NYC or SF or a similarly inflated market, first month's rent is probably not such a huge chunk of money that it will be impossible to find somebody who can spare it as a short-term loan.