Requirements to contact hosts (username change)

I know there are many threads on username changes already, and I'm sorry to bring it up again, but I can't find a concrete method. There's no option to change username on the profile page here, and many threads say you need to contact a host to do so. That's fine, many other discussion forums are the same.

One thread says I can contact a host once I reach level 2 (I'll try to spend some time here if that's the case), others have someone else contact the hosts for them, and some don't get replies at all.

Is the level 2 requirement still around, can I reach out to someone here, or is there some way I can ask hosts directly?