Single mom looking @ MT, help please! (Billings, Missoula: apartment, rental, crime)

[Reziac]

Since several people have mentioned the meth problem -- Anyone got stats on meth use in Montana vs elsewhere?

When I lived in MT, only Missoula was considered to have a "drug culture", and that was mostly just old hippies and their home-grown pot. But nothing like the club scene in west coast cities, where designer drugs are a big issue.

[Montanaford]

Billings has a lot of medical centers and the town of Laurel or Park City would probably be cheaper and not too much of a commute.

[Zeepogee]

We have just opened Montana's first Meth hospital here in Lewistown, Montana and soon to be nursing school. Jobs available. I just started a youth theatre in a big unused church building for a youth theatre, dance studio and hang out. Want to protect your kids from the bad stuff, start when they are young. This is a fine, small community to raise kids. Need help, c'mon!

[Gulskjegg]

Montana is #2 in America for illicit drug use AND suicides. For a state of less then a million, thats pretty staggering.

[snugglebump]

Hi(:

How about Great Falls? Have you thought about checking that Montana city out? The rental homes are really cheap, they seem to have a lot of jobs from what relatives tell me and from what their worksource has posted and the Hospital there has an online application. If you were considering going back to school, maybe you could get some job at that hospital, say in their Certified Nurses Aide program which is only a week or two to train for then go to work and take classes on the side? If not the Hospital, i'm sure the mall there would be hiring. I'll give some websites below, you can check them out if you like but I am interested in moving there myself for the low cost of living and the College and Universities there. Good luck!

God bless,
SnuggleBump
Seattle, WA soon to be Montana Resident

Great Falls Tribune - www.greatfallstribune.com - Great Falls, MT <------ There's the newspaper

[pray4fire]

Originally Posted by Quistoman

As far as meth, bah its more a political rally point that a real large problem. Sure its here but its still not at the point where you should consider razing your kids someplace else because of it.

Quistoman, you must live in Twodot if you can't see the Meth problem and call it a political rally point. Meet a few of the people that have ruined themselves on it and that will change your mind fast. Drop into the world of a SilverBow county social worker and take a look at a few of the kids that have had to leave mommy and daddy for their meth habit and see if that doesnt change your mind about the problem.

Jesslo, there are several good places to live and a lot of what's good for your kids has so much to do with how you raise them. I used to live in a city over a million and wouldn't send my kids out to wander. I've lived in towns of 600 up and in my current location of 3000 still keep a fairly close watch on my teens.

Montana leads in many dangerous areas. Per capita; we're the highest in the nation for alcohol related death & traffic fatalities, and teen pregnancy. My county has only 7000 and we are #2 in statewide teen pregnancy.

There are good places with good opportunities. I already mentioned the healthy after school program in Missoula. Someone mentioned Lewistown and that isn't a bad place. There are some caring people there. The rural towns offer little for kids and thats your big concern so the larger towns may have the better programs and supports as well as activities and good retail job opportunities.

Montana church life is a little old fashioned and not everyone really wants to get to know you. On the other hand there are some churches that really care about families an make it a priority to help single moms and provide quality camps, bible quiz, etc, etc.

Take care.

[Reziac]

But as a percentage of total kids, how many Montana kids are using meth?

Even as few as 1 percent would be enough to overwhelm most social-services departments.

Pulling some numbers out of my *** for demonstration purposes:

MT has about 900,000 people. Let's take a wild guess that 20% of those are kids of an age to know what drugs are. That's 180,000 Montanans who are kids.

If only 1% of those kids are meth users, that is 1800 kids who use meth.

If you put 1800 kids into local social-services facilities, even split up as a hundred here and a hundred there, it'll look like they're packed into every corner and closet, despite being a relatively small segment of the population.

This doesn't negate the fact that meth is a problem, but just because the meth problem overwhelms the facilities available for dealing with it doesn't mean the whole state is drowning in it. That's the point Quistoman was trying to get across, I think.

[pray4fire]

Reziac,

I can appreciate your argument and understand it.

We are not experiencing the large scale problems that other , more populated, states have to deal with. There's no doubt this is true.

I'll call your attention to one issue. By the repeated mention of "kids" in your posts one outside the area could assume this is a problem with kids. Unfortunately, our primary meth users are adult or very near it.

In my area, I can quickly think of several meth users. As their faces move through my mind they are all adult. They are thirty and forty year olds.

In our area, kids are generally smoking weed and alcohol is really the drug preference for local youth.

We did have a very serious drug task force bust a year ago but that was all about cocaine.

I may have been a bit harsh before, I mean suggesting somone was from Twodot. Who'd want to admit that?

[Reziac]

Well, I picked on kids because that's usually the focus of drug programs... but you're right, it's not necessarily an age-related problem. Frex, most of the potheads I know (meaning people who get into that "get stoned, blow off all your responsibilities" thing) are middle-aged to older folks.

Drug issues can seem all the worse when they contrast with the society as a whole, and I suspect that's a lot of what makes MT's problem seem more critical than it would, in terms of raw numbers, were it somewhere that the drug culture is a way of life.

As to Twodot ... we used to say of certain small towns that they were a good place to be FROM... now we all want to move there!

[pray4fire]

Reziac,

I know what you mean. ALl the little towns now have such appeal.