Moving to Long Beach to work at VA Hospital - I have young kids

[lkd12]

I live on the VA Hospital grounds in Long Beach. The VA has a couple of houses they rent out to employees and families. My husband is getting transferred out of state in the next few weeks, so you could always check to see if our 3BR house will be available. (It is slated for demolition at some point, but with all the building projects that got pushed back last due to budget cuts last year, who knows when that will be.) It can be kind of isolating not living in a real neighborhood, but the rent is quite cheap. Otherwise check out University Park Estates and Bixby Village - it's a little triangle of houses between 7th street, PCH, and whatever they call those water channel thingies. There's a good elementary school in that neighborhood and you'd be within an easy walk of the VA and easy range of the Marina and Belmont Shores area. (There's a great Sunday farmers market at the marina.) The Park Estates (I'm getting these names off the Google map) area and the neighborhood around PCH and Anaheim would be good, too. There are some surprisingly nice neighborhoods tucked behind the main streets around here. Since the VA is tucked into a corner of CSULB, look for any kind of college-related housing, as well. If I were going to rent in the area I think my top neighborhood would be Los Altos, off Bellflower between Stearns and Atherton. You've got parks with community centers, a great branch of the public library (the LB public library is wonderful), another good elementary school, the YMCA (or LA Fitness), shopping (Trader Joe's, Target, Bristol Farms), and the VA hospital - all within walking distance. As to actually finding places to rent over the internet, I had a hard time with that before we moved. Most of the places I see just have signs out front. Or possibly check with a real estate agent - I don't think that's uncommon practice when looking for rentals around here.

[boystuition]

Originally Posted by lkd12

I live on the VA Hospital grounds in Long Beach. The VA has a couple of houses they rent out to employees and families. My husband is getting transferred out of state in the next few weeks, so you could always check to see if our 3BR house will be available. (It is slated for demolition at some point, but with all the building projects that got pushed back last due to budget cuts last year, who knows when that will be.) It can be kind of isolating not living in a real neighborhood, but the rent is quite cheap.

I grew up living on the VA grounds in the 1960s and 70s. At the time there were quite few families with children, in fact the Long Beach Unified school bus came in to pick up/drop off from Minnie Gant Elementary school. My parents moved from there in 1995 as the employee housing was to be demolished. That building was still there when I drove through a few months ago.

To the OP, the Los Alto area, in Gant's home school area, is very nice and within your price range. There are a couple of apartment buildings near the Los Altos shopping center, plus occasional SFR for rent. That is just a couple miles from the VA. Gant is also one of the best performing schools in the district.

[lkd12]

Originally Posted by boystuition

I grew up living on the VA grounds in the 1960s and 70s. At the time there were quite few families with children, in fact the Long Beach Unified school bus came in to pick up/drop off from Minnie Gant Elementary school. My parents moved from there in 1995 as the employee housing was to be demolished. That building was still there when I drove through a few months ago.

I read your post to my husband who couldn't stop laughing when he found out the employee housing your parents vacated in 1995 was still standing. Apparently getting projects done on schedule isn't a specialty around here.

[Dennis P]

Originally Posted by TurcoLoco

Also I want to mention a new by-law LB in effect as of 8/1/2011:
- No more plastic shopping bags at stores/market!
- Alternative paper bags cost $.10 a pop or cough up about a $1 for reusable ones.

That's right. I sometimes shop at the Trader Joe's store on Bellflower Blvd. in the Los Altos Shopping Center, so whenever I go there, I have to remember to bring my reusable shopping bag(s) in order to avoid paying $.10 for the paper bags they used to hand out for free.