Apache: access denied because search permissions are missing
Solution 1:
Do a chmod +x on your user dir, and restart apache. 755 permissions should work. I've had problems with 644.
Solution 2:
If in the case of selinux being the issue, rather than just disable it, this page and this page give the command to grant access:
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t ~/public_html/