[bobsgrl]

Hello all, my husband and I may be moving from upstate NY to the Hope AR area very soon. I have researched the area with the best the internet has to offer but would like to hear more about the area from those with first hand knowledge...
I have specific questions about
1) daycare or schools for children with special needs?
2) how come realestate is so scarce and why don't agents return calls. ?
3) what activities are in the general area?

could someone help me out? I'd really appreciate it.

[Daedalus1]

Can I ask, why Hope? I will try to be as positive as I can be.
I was born there, and worked from there for many years. I still have lots of friends there. Prescott is my home, located 17 miles east of Hope. A lot of my family is still there.
Sixteen years ago, I moved to Northwest Arkansas. Best move I ever made. I have two small children and just couldn't see raising them in the Hope/ Prescott area. I wanted them in a safer area, with better schools, with 'constructive' things for them to do.
I know that NY has a lot of crime. Hope and surrounding areas have a LOT of crime, just condensed to a smaller area. It is also very clickish, as most small towns are. That may be why the realtors won't respond as they should.

As far as the schools are concerned, I would stongly recommend private for your children if you move there. I am not too familiar with the special needs educational opportunities there, Hope is a small town. I can check into it for you.
From one mom to another, do your homework on the area, intensively.
You will be in for a huge cultural shock. Even though the area is my home, I grew up all over the world. Dad was career Air Force. Returning there upon his retirement, made me appreciate not having to grow up there. A bit repressed. He kept us busy out on the farm as much as he could.
I apologize for not being very positive, I just can't think of too much 'positive' concerning that area.
Things to do:
Okay, they do have a big Watermelon Fesitival annually. Do you like arts and crafts? (Mostly crafts, no real arts) Also, in a neighboring community, Old Washington, there is the Annual Jonquil Festival, which is nice. Old Washington is kind of rich in cival war history. FYI, they do grow a lot of watermelons in the Hope area, however, they are better in the Prescott area. If you like watermelon.
What else... a lot of fast food restaurants, not what you are used to I am sure.
No big shopping malls in Hope. You will have to go to Texarkana for those, about 47 miles west of Hope. Or Little Rock, about a hundred miles east of Hope.
School sports, if you have a child that plays basketball or football.
That is about it on "things to do" in Hope, AR.

What I really would like to say about the area is this;
Learn to shoot a gun. Get one, and a conceal/ carry permit. Find a safe place to keep it, out of the reach of your children, but have one in your home. Make sure you have good locks on your home, and use them. Always lock your vehicle, even at home.
Never take your eyes off your children, be very involved in everything they do. Especially if you decide on the public school system. Get a precription for Prozac, or some other antidepressant. You'll need it.
I would never go back, except for my family visits. Have you guys thought about maybe just going down for a week to check the area out?
Hope is referred to as the "birthplace of Bill Clinton". That is just it. He grew up in Hot Springs. Hey, Hot Springs is a great place. Nice communities, nice lakes, pretty good schools.
I will make a call this afternoon regarding the SN school info. for you and convey my findings to you.
Let me know how you do. I wish you the best.

[bobsgrl]

Thanks so much for giving me this information.
However, my husbands company...we call them HSC has decided that my husband will not be transfered after all. That is after we have already put our home on the market, moved my son to my ex's because he didn't want to leave, told all our relatives and packed most of our stuff.

The HR rep for the Hope plant called my husband this morning to tell him that we were not going to transfer because "we were not a fit culturally, and he was to aggressive in getting the transfer which they believed he was trying to run away from some legal problem here in NY and the NY plant was better off keeping him".

Nice, huh? I guess nobody believes in chance for a better life for their family anymore, considering he was going to get a pay increase and the cost of living is sooooo much cheaper there.People would rather believe that you commited so major crime.

Maybe this experience is a blessing in disguise because my husband and I have decied to take our chances sell the house and find a much friendlier company to work for and in a much nicer area.

As for the...having to lock the house,cars and buying a gun, that was a little shocking currently we live north of Albany and have never had to be that concerned about our safety and the safety of our children (although we have two big unfriendly dogs), it's nice to know that we could have actually been worse off if we had transfered.

[Daedalus1]

I can't believe that they actually told you that "you were not fit culturally for the area". Okay, yes I can. But it is crap. Maybe they felt threatened that you would be an intellectual challenge for them!!!!!!!!! See it as a blessing from God, and tell him "Thank You".
I feel like I was being totally honest with you about the area. It is not a great place. I had a bit of an inside, not only being from the area, but also that I was a news reporter and covered Hope and surrounding areas. Wow, I had had enough. My kids are the most important thing in the world to me, I had to get them out while they were little. Seemed like the chief entertainment there for teens was drinking on the weekends, and fighting. Not much else for them to do. Everytime, it seems, when I go back home for a visit, there is news of a fatality involving a teen driving drunk. Or someone being killed in a break in, or rape, etc... I am trying to get my dad to sell the farm and get out of there. He is stubborn, but owns lots of guns.

I always felt that "culturally", I did not fit in. I certainly didn't want my kids to grow up with the mind set that exists in that area.
You know, you guys might look at the Northwest Arkansas area. There are some nice communities here, and not such a small mind set. One of the major hubs for Fed Ex is located here in Harrison, and they are expanding. I hear that there will be 400 to 500 more positions available. There are also many other industries located here. We have land available, and I can recommend some great realtors to you. Realtors that would be happy to talk with you. Our area is growing, and we have lots of people moving in from up north. There's room! The cost of living is certainly manageable.
Also, though we do have some crime, I don't panic if my husband forgets to lock the doors at night. Not to mention that I have a 135 lb unfriendly Komandor.

It sounds like your life is really turned upside down for the moment. But it also sounds like you are more than capable of getting it back together.
Let me know if I can do anything to help you if decide to look into this area. I think you would like what you find. We are building a nice spec home in a beautiful country setting right down the road from our home. Love to have you as a neighbor.

[bobsgrl]

Thanks again!
Right now I am currently scouring the internet for a job match for the both of us. My husband is a chemical tech. and I have had the privalage of staying home with our autistic daughter but now must return to manufacturing myself.
I know we will be just fine and we will settle down in a great place to call "home". I'll continue looking.

Thanks again for being so frank, I kind of thought that I might find someone out there who had first hand knowledge. I'll have to look into the northern section of Arkansas, as you suggested, after all I don't think my "almost" neighbors in Hope wouldn't have appreciated the fact that I have a college background in criminal justice and have been known to accept corrections work.

We have an English mastiff and a pitbull mix.

[Daedalus1]

That sounds like quite a dog!!!!

I have a cousin in Hope who was a chemical engineer, now an attorney. He worked for a company in Hope. Wonder if it was the same one?

I love the South, don't get me wrong. I just wonder if they have ever gotten over the cival war thing in some areas???

You know...when you think about it, it sounds like you guys were victims of discrimination. That really bothers me. There will always be a part of me that thinks like a reporter... I am now a scuba instructor. (I love my job.)
I have a close friend who is a cival/criminal litigater in Little Rock. I would love to get his thoughts on this incident. He also practices in New York. That is his home state and he is there often. He is very good, works for the United Nations also.

I hope you can find an area that suits you. Don't rule out the whole state. Arkansas is beautiful and has many areas I am sure you and your family would love. And the mind set that I have referred to is, a minority.

[az2id]

I was forced to move to Hope Arkansas a few years ago. I hated it. I hated it. If you aren't worrying about tornados, then you are worried about work. It's a dirty town. Northern Arkansas is beautiful and has something to offer. The college campus in Fayetteville is absolutely wonderful. I'm not sure why anyone would want to move anywhere in AR to tell you the truth. Good luck!

[bobsgrl]

Yeah, I definately believe it to be discrimination...and it's not the first time I have encountered it with this particular company.
I had applied there myself a while back and was only running against one other person for the position, during the interview I was asked alot of questions about physical ability, heights etc...
Long story short...the other GUY got the job although I was more qualified.
Like I said we are going to look for a whole new company to work for, I know they aren't all like this one.

Thanks to you both for the posts.

[kd4csm]

Forget moving here. The folks who control this city don't want anyone to move here, especially Yankees! Over and over I hear that they don't want outsiders moving to Hope(less).

My parents moved here with four other families thirty years ago. The other four families were smart. They all moved elsewhere from Hope before too long.

Every single one of my parent's children (all 9 of us) also settled elsewhere to raise our families. That fact alone should speak volumes.

Over the past months, I have personally made numerous efforts to speak with the city manager about bringing a new industry to the area, and she was negative, negative, NEGATIVE about EVERYTHING proposed. She made it extremely obvious that she didn't even want to LISTEN to ANYTHING.

A while back, the city got a FEMA grant to use a half dozen of their thousands of unused disaster trailers to house local homeless folks, and they are still sitting empty, not even hooked up to electricity or water or sewage, while homeless folks live in the woods just outside the city limits.

The folks who run the local shelter for the homeless mouth compassionate words, but they exist solely to recruit "members" for their "ministry" which operates out of the home of the local sheriff. They even provide transportation to this "non-denominational ministry", but they don't have time to help those very same homeless folks find jobs, provide NO reading materials whatsoever to them in the shelter, even the local newspaper's classified ads so they can try to find a job. Women and handicapped are given preferential treatment (transporation, help with medical needs, permanent housing assistance), yet men are left to fend for themselves to get to the industrial area to apply for jobs (7 miles one way from the shelter).

I even heard from a reliable source that the town's only public library will close for a month, with NO arrangements made to put even some of their resources elsewhere to serve the community.

The town has NO taxi company and NO bus service, the average family wage with two working parents is around $25K total, and the average house is worth around $50K, so as you might expect, there is block after block of substandard housing.

The downtown business area looks like a war zone with empty storefronts, collapsing roofs, vacant lots, and a few shops owned by immigrants with no english signs visible -- so potential patrons have to guess what they sell if they only know the english language.

My brother operates a 294 acre cattle ranch just outside the city in an area that has no volunteer fire department due to it's proximity to the city -- and if he calls 911 for a brush fire, the city charges $500 to respond. No opportunity to join a fire district and pay an annual fee.

There is NO cell phone service and NO cable tv service and NO internet broadband service in MOST of the county, there is NO shopping center in the county, and most folks who live here see NO NEED for any of the above, as they have gotten along fine for their whole life without these conveniences.

The city is majority black and hispanic, yet is controlled by minority whites. (The city board of directors has seven members, two of whom are black, five white, and, of course, the mayor and city manager and fire chief and police chief, and city owned electric and water and sewage service manager -- all are white.) But they will all have a huge smile on their faces as they DENY systemic racism in the community.

A derailed train car lies on its side where it derailed in a residential area just south of downtown, apparently many months ago, and appears to be a hazard to playing children as well as community health, yet there appears to have been no effort made to remove the railcar's carcass.

Yet the city has plenty of money to install an expensive "big brother" fiber-optic surveillance camera system for their police department to watch their citizens enjoying their trips to the city parks and downtown.

I spoke to a local elderly handicapped veteran who lives in a house with a leaking roof who cannot get help from the government to repair the leak in the house that he OWNS, yet they have a "program" to give him a free apartment. What a waste of taxpayer resources. How can it possibly be cheaper to give him a rental unit for life than to fix his roof leak? Perhaps there is a city or county employee whose job is to find clients for this program, yet they are too myopic to see the actual need and find funds to meet that need, thereby saving taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in the long run.

A local "in the know" person told me that as many as a third of the graduates of the local, poorly rated, high school leave the area upon graduation because their is NO opportunity here. They have to go elsewhere for a good liberal arts or technical education, elsewhere for a post-graduate degree, elsewhere to earn a satisfactory living.

One long term resident confided to me that even local doctors and lawyers have a hard time making more than $75K per year -- you have to travel to Little Rock or Dallas to earn $150K to $250K in those professions according to my source. Consequently, you will find some professionals from Pakistan, India, or other places working off a government loan committment by serving this rural community. Of course, when their work committment is completed, they move to a big city for more money and "ammenities of civilization" -- who can blame them?

Therefore, there are very few "local" business folks who have the means to invest in the community, with one exception. This is a "dry" county. For those of you who are not from the south, that means the sale of beer, wine, and liquor is illegal (except for the local "country club" set). So an enterprising local businessman set up a beer and liquor store a few feet over the county line and invests his enormous profits in local convenience stores, gas stations, restaurants, pawnshops, and even has branched out to other cities as well. This man appears to be the ONLY progressive businessman in Hope. And, of course, his biggest money-making business serving Hope citizens isn't even located in the county. That should tell you speak volumes about the leadership of the city.

For three months I have attempted to speak to city and county leaders about bringing in new industry to expand the tax base, increase employment opportunities, and provide a way to increase the skill set of local residents by offering free job skills training, and each of the "community leaders" I spoke with (except two) were NEGATIVE. The MOST NEGATIVE was the city manager (above referenced).

The ONLY hope for Hope appears that eventually the currently subjugated black citizens will realize what is happening, will register to vote, and will change the entire composition of the city's board of directors, and replace the city manager with someone more open to new business ventures that would benefit the citizens. As you might expect, the current leaders of the city do their best to gerrymander the election wards to preclude more than two black leaders from being elected.

The myopic leadership appears to be using federally funded grant moneys to employ and enrich a few privileged local folks to the detriment of certain races and religions and classes of citizens. By their gerrymandering, they have apparently perpetrated this scheme to keep others from having a true voice in the city's policies.

When a few of the local black ministers decide to speak out about the systemic racism and unconstitutional treatment they are receiving at the hands of the city leadership, it may occur to one or more of them that a class action lawsuit against the city is past due. Certainly a federal judge has the power to change what the city leadership refuses to change to provide equal opportunity to all citizens.

Good luck to any out of towner who moves here with their family -- your kids will receive an inferior education, your pay will be LOW, your house is likely to be substandard, if you build a house, you will likely have to drill a well for clean drinking water, dig a hole for a septic tank, sign up with DISH or DirecTV if you want to watch television, be satisfied with a "local" phone company that has NO local office and answers your calls from a call center in another country, be satisfied with 56K dialup internet service for the forseeable future (the "local" cable company quoted my brother $5000.00 to extend cable tv two lots -- about a city block -- to his FEMA trailer, and estimated it would be several years for them to do the engineering work necessary to install an amplifier to boost their signal "that extensive a distance.") Cell phone? Forget it if you live more than six miles from the couple of towers that serve the county.

As referenced above, the BIG goings on in the city are the annual WATERMELLON festival, and the exciting happenings at the local cattle auction serving the county's cattle ranches. If you really want to see something exciting, you can always go out to the Tyson plant and watch the illegal aliens cut the heads off thousands of chickens each day. The biggest traffic jams in town are caused by the tractor trailer loads of chickens making their sad one-way trip as the trucks converge on the Tyson facility.

HOPE? No -- HOPELESS. Move here and encounter the self-serving, myopic attitude of the city leadership, and you will experience the essence of HOPLESSNESS.

[nicolepsy]

boy are you in for a shock! totally different from upstate ny!