Apache2 virtualhost 403 forbidden?

I was faced with this issue. But I didn't like the idea of changing the group of my home directory to www-data. This problem can simply be solved by modifying the configuration file for the virtualHost. Simply configure the Directory tag to include these

<Directory "your directory here">
   Order allow,deny
   Allow from all
   Require all granted
</Directory>

The Require all granted is a new feature I guess; having a default value of denied.

see this page for further info: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/core.html#directory

Turns out I had to chmod not only /home/afflicto/public_html but also /home/afflicto/ directory as well.

Weird.