Personally, I'm a snob when it comes to hosting and I will admit it. If I see that a business is hosted free (and you can typically tell because of the advertising placed on the site), I lose confidence in the business. Psychologically, it tells me this person isn't sure enough about her business when in reality, it could just be that this person didn't realize that there are very economical solutions to hosting.
I know Microsoft Office Live is actually free but it doesn't place an ad at the top of your site and their templated designs lend themselves very well to business sites. I would pursue that before something like Freewebs or Bravenet.
But it's important to realize that paid hosting can be so much less expensive than you realize and many hosts now offer monthly payments rather than yearly (although you will typically save a little more by going yearly).
If you look to the right, there is an ad for
Website Hosting specifically for Virtual Assistants. That might be something to look into.