Moving from Australia to Oregon ~ Grants Pass, Medford area (employment, home)

[elmerlyn]

i am hoping anyone with jr. high and high school aged kids can help me. i am looking at bend, medford and ashland areas. what schools are great and what areas do i stay away from. also, what is the teen community like around these areas. i am currently living in an area where there is NOTHING for my kids to do except come home and sit. (it's mostly a retirement community) also, out of these 3 areas, which one would likely have jobs available that offer benefits? and one last question...so any of these areas do any carpenter UNION work? thanks for any advice. please hurry and respond. i need to figure out this move by nov/dec.

[anne6030]

My husband was raised in White City. He wants to move back to the Bend area or maybe Grants Pass, But when he retired from the air force we opened a business in Minot, ND. So we are kinda stuck here. Don't get me wrong we like Minot but miss family alot. He says both places are in a nice area with trees.

anne6030

[Take_The_Train]

Originally Posted by elmerlyn

i am hoping anyone with jr. high and high school aged kids can help me. i am looking at bend, medford and ashland areas. what schools are great and what areas do i stay away from. also, what is the teen community like around these areas. i am currently living in an area where there is NOTHING for my kids to do except come home and sit. (it's mostly a retirement community) also, out of these 3 areas, which one would likely have jobs available that offer benefits? and one last question...so any of these areas do any carpenter UNION work? thanks for any advice. please hurry and respond. i need to figure out this move by nov/dec.

I do not know much about Bend, except that it is kind of isolated. Ashland has the best schools, but is very expensive. The Rogue Valley (Medford, Ashland, Grants Pass) isn't known for its good paying jobs with benefits I'm afraid. To my knowledge the carpentry work around here is not Union and does not pay well either, unless you own your won business. There aren't many Union jobs in this area, unless you are a State/City/County employee, Nurse, Electrician, Grocery Retail worker, etc.

What types of things do your kids like to do? Ashland would be the best bet for after school activities as well, as your kids could most likely walk to them. Ashland is very walkable and completely safe. Grants Pass is a retirement community, possibly much like the one you want to leave. Not much to do, but it is prettier than Medford. However it is also quite seedy and not as walkable as Ashland. Medford is pretty much the retail mecca of the Rogue Valley, and it has the most jobs. A lot of people work there and commute to Ashland or Grants Pass.

[beccajoy]

Southern Oregon has the best weather. We experience all 4 seasons. We get everything from snow, sun, rain, etc. In the winters we can occasionally get a little bit of snow but never very much. The Summers are my FAVORITE because they are extremely sunny and get very hot but without the humidity (which is how i like it). So GOOD WEATHER

If you are looking for Highschools for your kids - I recomend South Medford High School. Grants Pass High School is pretty good too I guess.
However, I do NOT recomend Crater High School, Pheonix Highschool, or North Medford Highschool. Trust me.

You are going to have trouble finding a job here. Employment here SUCKS! Jobs here SUCK!

Our city is planned very poorly - heck so poorly to the point to where our County LIBRARIES have been closed because the people in charge did not deal with the money correctly.

Medford is a pretty town, nice weather, but with sucky job employments. The End.

[elmerlyn]

thanks for the replies. it's pretty disappointing job wise. i'm so frustrated and am even looking at sarasota, venice florida area. i just had a friend move there and she loves it. i made the mistake of selling my home in another area to that my husband could "slow down his life and have more family time" it's so slow, and now he has to work twice as hard so no family time and now my kids and i are stuck. where does a family go anymore? i was hoping to hear better news about so.oregon, but it sounds like it's similar to where i am now. i have a college degree and work with a girl who has a ph.d and one that has a masters and we are all serving coffee just so we can get benefits for our families. ( there is only one coffee company that offers benefits and you can guess which one that is.) anyway, if anyone has any other areas to suggest, let me know. thanks again.

[Thai]

Just returned from a wonderful week thoroughly exploring the area around Grants Pass. Absolutely beautiful valley, but I can't take the air pollution situation. With a couple of actual highways running right through town in addition to I-5 it was difficult for me to breathe many times till it rained. Then the deisel trucks and cars brought it right back after a day or so (or perhaps it was only a few hours). The city and county fathers should long ago have developed a plan to reroute those very heavily traveled roadways around their beautiful town. My concern is that particulate matter and ozone spread out over the whole area, of course, just at a lesser concentration than down town and near I-5. One would have to live very far from town over a mountain or two to really live where the air was substantially better. And as on most of the West Coast the wind most likely blows predominantly from the West, so the little towns of Eagle Point and Shady Cove, etc. get the I-5 drift, just like all the communities east of the interstate in Western Oregon. Very disappointing, as otherwise GP has come a long way towards being a very nice and interesting small city. Walking down town was so distressing and the exhaust smell so unpleasant we only went a block or so before giving up, which was a shame as there are many nice establishments to explore. Watching the ducks and geese and even a crane from our campsite at the RV park was great, and the toffee at Cary's is heavenly. We'll be back to visit, for sure.

[mike_down_under]

bumpy de bump

[mike_down_under]

What would be the major employers around Grants / Medford area?

[ladysrodgers]

Originally Posted by ConeyIsBabe

In the Rogue Valley; you asked for the "worst" so here's my humble opinion: there is a shortage of funds for libraries and law enforcement in Jackson County and Josephine County. As a result, the libraries are CLOSED at the present time. There have been cutbacks in law enforcement service due to personnel shortage and lack of money. THINK ABOUT THAT! At a recent crime watch meeting it was suggested that people NOT count on a swift response time when calling the police for help; in other words..... we have to take control of the situation ourselves when faced with being victimized. THINK ABOUT THAT!

You are absolutely right! THAT is a BIG reason why I moved from the Grants Pass/Medford area last March.

I lived in the Applegate Valley. I had to call 911 once, and it took an hour before a Sheriff showed up.

Even our local country store had been vandalized. More and more of my neighbors were experiencing vandalism too, because of all the meth freaks, who "knew" they could get away well before any law enforcement showed up.

There are already a zillion and one builders in the area who are well connected. It's VERY hard to get established in the area and liability insurance for a builder is sky high.

[mike_down_under]

I don't want to be a builder as such, been running my own company since i was 17, been there done that, now I'm happy to be a chippie working for someone else or branch out into something totally different (sounds like there's openings for law enforcement huh?). Does the county's have any long term plans to deal with the meth problems or is it just left up to the police?