Working at the Loma Linda Veterans Admin Medical Center (San Bernardino: salons, real estate)

[boyet]

Where would you live if you are working at the Loma Linda VAMC and have a high school aged child living with you? Temporarily will rent at least 2 BR apt/townhome, up to $1,400. Thanks.

[wildmaven]

Just put in an application there myself.

[jmlowman]

Loma Linda itself is quite nice, as is neighboring Redlands. In either case, your child would attend school in the Redlands district; also quite good. The other neighboring city is Grand Terrace but, while it's also a nice community, I believe that the school district is Colton.

[kim.kim]

Loma Linda has a huge 7th day adventist population, and was named one of the healthiest cities in the WORLD!! That kinda shocked me! haha But it's really nice.

I LOVE Redlands, it's kinda got a small town vibe, but with all the amenities of a larger city!

I live in the mountains above San Bernardino, to get down the 'hill' is a 15 min drive. Rent is cheap, the scenery is beautiful, and I've had no issues with snow with my Toyota Camry... I LOVE it

[dirtrider9805]

I would move to Yucaipa and rent a home would be my first choice but for apartments there would be a better selection of nicer apartments in Redlands you might also look into cherry valley beaumont area which is growing and getting a little more cleaned up stay away from Banning though if your looking in that area.

[Mountain Sprite]

I live about 20 minutes away from Yucaipa (in the mountains where we get A LOT of snow) I do a lot of my shopping there. It used to be a very old-fashioned, quaint town, but a lot of cookie cutter houses have been built there recently and it has changed the landscape substantially. They still have the regional park there where people camp and fish, and they have the lake with water slides and whatnot. It used to have a very small town feeling where you could see people riding their horses down main street, but that has changed and the town is beginning to take on a newer feel to it. It is nestled in a green valley surrounded by rolling green hills at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains (Big Bear is about 1 1/2 hours from there), but since the housing tracts moved in on the he west side of town the rolling hills there are now covered with two-story homes and it isn't the verdant or pretty area it used to be, and with the recent real estate crash a lot of these homes are vacant now, so you could probably find one to rent or buy with ease. When they built the new homes they put in a golf course and many of the houses border on this. I don't golf, but I've heard it's nice.The town has tried to grow with the influx of people but it is still a far cry from Redlands where most of your major shopping is located - there or Banning. However the town has two Stater Bros, a Von's, Staples, and a Marshall's. There is an old town main street but it is struggling since the new shopping center went in. The town has all of your basic amenities...hair and nail salons, medical center, small restaurants, hardware stores, 99 cent store, a fair variety of fast food chains, Starbuck's and pharmacies. A lot of the newer business construction still remains vacant and the new shopping center used to have a Long's but they moved out leaving the building vacant. The new housing tracts have meandering, landscaped walkways which are quite lovely to ride, walk or jog on. There are certain parts of town to avoid like any town, but most of it is safe and grafitti free still. Also there have been some new schools built in the newer section of town and the high school has gotten a face lift, but I don't have children so I don't know what they are like. There are sections of town that have quaint, classic homes with acreage and in those areas it has a very open feeling rather than the closed in feeling of the new tract housing. Some of the homes up on the hills on the east side of downtown are older, but they have awesome views of the valley and the lights at night. Yucaipa has had two very light snows this year not enough for chains but enough to make it pretty. Spring is beautiful with lots of flowering trees, and it is high enough that it gets fall color and the summers are a little cooler than down in Redlands or Loma Linda. It's about 15 minutes below Oak Glen which is a great place to visit for the day and in fall they have apple season which is worth the drive up Oak Glen Apple Growers' Association Home Page .

As for Banning I'm not as familiar with that town as I am with Beaumont, which is a great place to live. I do know that parts of Banning are not good to move into - anything west of 8th street is unsafe but north and east of that is quite lovely and safe. We are looking into possibly moving into a manufactured home community there, and since we are considering that we've been doing a lot of driving around, and we are getting a real feel for the town. If you drive north on Highland Avenue and down Wilson Street there are some nice housing tracts and lots of large open meadows with grazing cattle, and beautiful views of the snow capped mountains. South across the 10 freeway there are a lot of chain stores (Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond, Staples, Petco) and in Cabazon (15 minutes away) there is a HUGE outlet shopping center. Banning does have a restored downtown area but it's still kind of seedy looking, however, they are working on it, and the police department has cracked down on a lot of the unsavory parts of the city which has made a big difference with crime. Banning doesn't have the quaintness of Beaumont because it's so spread out, but as I said before some parts of it are quite nice.

Personnaly I like Beaumont better than Banning it has more of a country feeling to it. Beaumont is closer to Loma Linda than Banning but only by about 10 minutes. There are new homes there as well as the classic ones with quite a few fairly new schools and parks to accomodate the new housing tracts. In the older sections of the town there are elm or pine tree lined residential areas with older homes (1950's and older) and vintage street lighting that give it the feel of a bygone era. These homes are not run down and there is a real pride of ownership feeling among these neighborhoods.

Beaumont and Banning definitely have four distinct seasons which you don't get in Redlands or Loma Linda. Because they are nestled up to the mountains you get the cold (it snows more frequently there than in Yucaipa, but once again not enough to need chains) the beauty of spring (cherry and apple blossoms) and they are also about 15-20 minutes from Oak Glen, and 30 minutes from Palm Springs, or and hour from Idyllwild. The summers are cooler than Redlands and Loma Linda, and the falls have lots of deciduous trees so you get the autumn colors.

None of the towns I've mentioned above have a night life to speak of or a large movie theater complex. You'd need to drive to Redlands for those. They are all close to the 10 freeway and traffic isn't that congested unless it's a holiday weekend.

If I had my choice of any of these towns I'd pick Beaumont hands down.