Safest Small Town in SW Idaho?? (Boise, Homedale: sex offender, low crime, school district)

[1korkie]

I am Currently researching small towns in the south west section of Idaho for My fiance and I, and also Good friends and their 5 small children. Where is the safest small town in SW Idaho? We are looking for a place with a low crime rate, low cost of living (you tried to be a couple 25 and 20 raising a blended family w 5 small kids lately? Woo! I feel for them!) Low sex offender rate, and also a good school district. We would really prefer a small town being as we are all country people and would prefer to keep it that way, for the sake of our own sanity. Also, they need to be close to "Homedale" for their job to be. Homedale was considered first but after one visit to National Sex Offender Registry that changed.

We would like a town where there is a sense of community, community pride, and someplace welcoming. Its really hard for young couples to integrate into the communities now adays, especially when there is no direct connection to any religious groups.

Also, I have heard there are problems with LDS community not welcoming non LDS into the community and going as far as alienating the familys and not allowing children to interacte with one another?? Is this a problem?

[Lacerta]

I think there was another post on the sex offender thing around on the forum somewhere. You might want to take the time to actually call a few of the police stations about it if you are really concerned. Its tough to judge Idaho according to those websites, since they require everyone to register, even if all they did was go streaking in college or mooned someone as a prank. It can be difficult to judge where the true "offenders" actually are. You could live somewhere with 50 little dots and have perfectly normal people as neighbors, or somewhere with 2 dots, but both are repeat offenders of very bad things.

I don't know anything about the Homedale area, so maybe there really is a problem out there. Don't take what I'm saying as an indication that it is overstated or "safe". I really don't know.

As for the LDS factor, it is really just like any other group of people. You have perfectly normal people and you have fanatics. Growing up, most of my friends were LDS, and I wasn't, and their parents had no issue with it, because my parents were good people, even if they weren't the same religion. However, you do hear a fair number of stories, so it obviously does happen that some parents have issues with their kids playing nice with other religions. Honestly, it is more of a personality thing than a religious thing. On an individual level, if you make friends with the neighbors first, they most likely will be fine letting the kids be friends. If you are a recluse and they don't know you or anything about you, they probably will not want their kids at your house. As it should be.

On the other hand, if the entire community is heavily LDS, there will not be a lot of other events going on, so it might be difficult to integrate yourself into the community, in which case the kids will probably have trouble making friends too. Just a matter of not having lots of opportunities to interact.

Sorry I don't have any specific information for that area. I've lived in Boise for 30 years, I just don't make it out that way

[1korkie]

I hope it didn't come off as offensive. I tried to be as straight forward about my concerns as possible. I do know that there are ALOT of LDS families who are WONDERFUL, it just seems to have become a concern. And... the sexual predators make me ExTREMELY nervous but I am not so oblivious as to not research the types of crimes, repedative natures... etc. Anyhow. Thank you for your input