gang areas in escondido (Chula Vista, Vista: low income, for rent, violent crime)

[gzpiloto]

Im looking at buying a home in Escondido, but want to avoid the gang areas
or very low income areas. Anybody know which areas i need to avoid?

[j760]

I'd say avoid the center of the city, or old Escondido basically. South & Southwest Escondido have some rather nice areas, or even out by the North County Fair has some nice areas to depending on what your looking for.

If your able to drive by some neighborhoods like on a Saturday night that will give you a good idea of the area to. To avoid what your wanting to avoid though I'd say just stay away from the center of the city.

[Annie Metal]

pretty much anywhere in esco is nice.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Center city is Illegal Alien central as it's a sanctuary city and since it is lower income it is of course where you get higher crime then the outlying areas. Good luck.

I won't tip toe around it as I think information on buying a house should have those demographics too.

[esmith143]

It's NOT a sanctuary city, it just happens to have large low-income hispanic population (some of it illegal), and once they're in, it's hard to get them out. Escondido City Council has been trying various ways to reduce illegal population for several years, their first & most effective solution (penalties for renting to illegals) was defeated by ACLU, they are implementing traffic checkpoints, debating the legislation to limit on-street parking to deal with multiple families sharing single-family houses, etc. But it's an uphill battle.

You want to stay north of Country Club, south of 17th, or west of 15.

[ranzchic]

What, they are seriously thinking of traffic checkpoints for papers? Who is ever gonna keep their huge lawns?

[esmith143]

They are not thinking, they are actually doing that, twice a month. Everyone who fails to present a valid DL gets their car impounded and it costs around $1100 to get it back.

One of the dangers of living in a city with large illegal population is that many drivers are unlicensed and uninsured.

[esmith143]

By the way, I think that crime levels in Escondido are somewhat exagerrated. Let's compare Escondido and Carlsbad.

Escondido: official population 136k (census estimate), add 30k illegal immigrants
Carlsbad: official population 95k

Crime stats and maps can be found here:

ARJIS Public Web Site > ARJIS Home

Let's look at the period of January through December of 2007.

Carlsbad murders: 2 Escondido murders: 4

Crimes per 100,000 inhabitants:
Total violent crimes: Carlsbad: 333 Escondido: 395
Burglaries: Carlsbad: 553 Escondido: 486
Total property crimes: Carlsbad: 2563 Escondido: 2604

Most of the valley is low-income, no argument about it. I think it's always been. Even back in the 80's Escondido valley was slightly more expensive than Encanto / Natl City and slightly cheaper than Chula Vista. In the last 20 years, poor whites have been largely supplanted by poor hispanics. School ratings are quite bad for the same reason. Low-income children usually do poorly in schools, especially when English is not their first language. But the picture of Escondido as a gang-infested area where it's not safe to be outside at night is not entirely accurate. You can drive around and see for yourself. Houses are small and cheap but, for the most part, taken care of, there's no blight, not much graffiti etc.

[mommalumps]

As you can see, illigal immigrants are a hot button issue here in Escondido. I am originally from New Orleans. LA; talk about culture shock!!! My family and I live in Central Escondido and we are African-America!!! Besides the continuous stares (still after 3 years) and the really bad accents that they speak in (did I mention that I also SPEAK Spanish?), the racist comments from the kids like "Black people stink" or "Black people are dirty" (these comments came from my daughter's ex-playmate who had people sleeping in her tub, hence, not bath for her; let's do the math,people),my family has done fine; besides, the illegals have a way of staring and then smiling at you. I am not used to this and it's a bit unnerving. Anyhoo, I will be a nurse in a year and will be moving to North or South Escondido.
You will see with your eyes where not to go in Escondido; just watch for the ladies with a baby strollers with a kid on top, three on the inside of it, and one hitched on the back.
I would LOVE someone from the ACLU to come and live in Central Escondido.

[esmith143]

There's an article in NC Times that claims that Escondido lost almost a QUARTER of its immigrant population between 2006 and 2007, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

I looked at the census web site, and, indeed, it shows a 2% decline of native citizen population (96.6k to 94.7k), a 4% decline of naturalized citizen population (9,876 to 9,483), and a 27% decline of non-citizen population (33.7k to 24.6k).

2008 numbers should be interesting.