Permalink problems with XO server

Where to begin? Okay, first off, I’ve tried clean install of wordpress, disabling plugins and changing back to 2010 theme, all of which don’t work. I use Enom for my hosting (an XO Server that does NOT support enabling of mod_rewrite. My .htaccess file won’t create itself, so I wrote the following code and placed in the root folder:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

I am trying to use a custom permalink structure that would allow my url to look like:
https://www.HeritageConsultingGroup.com/events rather than https://www.HeritageConsultingGroup.com/index.php/events

My current permalink structure is: index.php/%postname%/
When I remove the index.php and just make it /%postname%/, I get a 404 error

Questions:
1. if mod_rewrite is not enabled, does my .htaccess folder even work? I’d like to try to fix before having to change hosting companies only to find they weren’t the problem after all
2. If .htaccess will work, is my code correct?
3. What should my permalink structure be?

I have been at this for WEEKS. Any help is greatly appreciated.