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I'm currently in the process of researching a move to Wichita due to family matters. I haven't relocated very much in my lifetime, so I'm new at most things associated with such a move.
I'm needing advice on where to look for housing as far as websites, where to call, ect. I'm middle class, and prefer a nice place that is secure, and am not afraid of a commute from an outlying community if necessary.
Also, is there perhaps a place that I can search online that will help me locate job opportunities in the area? Automotive repair and Nursing would be the primary areas I'm interested.
Any suggestions on where to live from current residents? Where not to live? Places NOT to work in the above mentioned fields?
We're going to be moving there, too. I found a lot of good information by searching this site "Wichita" and reading the posts. They list areas to kind of stay away from, too like this street from this street isn't good, etc....and then I wrote them down, so I had them all in one place. We're having issues because of the number of pets we have. A lot of apartments have a 2 pet limit. Do you have any pets? That will be a factor, too. I googled apartments and made a list of what I wanted like number of bedrooms, bathrooms, etc..and it came up with a list. Then I looked at location from what I found out in the "Wichita" post. It's a little bit of research, but it's also kind of fun to look at places that might be my next home! I don't know if this helps you or not but it's a place to start. You can also google reviews on any apartment to read about what past renters have said about the complex. You have to keep in mind though, that a lot of people are negative about things they are leaving behind. Once I get there I'll be able to say more of course. I just can't wait to get there! I know living in the mid-west is the best place to be!!!!!! Good luck to you on your search, too!!!!!
Thanks! I have 1 cat so the pet thing doesn't appear to be a problem for the most part thankfully.
The biggest thing is employment right now....it would be nice if there was one resource for all employment in my field that I could look at. With such a large city, you think there would be many jobs available....surely there is a website or such that has openings listed?
Repeated complaints about nursing home sexual abuse by one group of sex abusers have been ignored for 20 years+, victim's families ruined and run off...Nursing homes started to hire some very mentally ill nursing home staffers who will help with anything & cover it up. State & department of aging have no interest in this...
The Wichita employment situations are regularly getting people fired every 6 months and denied unemployment as lots of employers are keeping the workplace abusers and just shuffle through the new residents & women who desperately want to work. Rest of the people work failing jobs with high law suit potential for $9 an hour...
Socialize or go to church & you will have another group demanding favors from you, some left unable to work for couple of years for declining.
KC is hostile place unless you know a local BUT the senior services are much better if you want to try living 1/2 hour away, lots better jobs too...Do not go East of Wichita and North to I-70 due to BAD drug problems + dirty cops in countryside that are ruining new residents who try it & run off...North or West of Wichita would be my choice or Oklahoma (with basement facility)...OKC south side blows away every 3 years so I would skip this.
Unless you have a lot of experience in your field to get you hired from out of town, most have to rent a local apartment then apply for work and will have job in 4 months. If you only show 8-10 years of work experience, do not list year of graduation so you look younger on paper.
Wichita cars blow up the first time the dealer works on them. There is no bus transportation to the suburbs & taxies take 3-4 hours for some...Some here drove vehicle to 90k miles just topping off fluids and it ran fine until traded in and purchased by some single mom with 4+ kids, then engine blew up. Some people think cars are being ruined immediately off the sale lot & driving for 3 hours to buy new vehicles from another town. Wichita has tons of 1 year old USED cars with multiple glitches & lemonized.
I'm 40 year Wichita resident who will not even get involved in the Wichita job market any longer. I can get a job outside this area in 2 months if I have a place rented. Am saving to do this again. I'm taking my elders to a new town so we can live out our final days +work without dealing with Wichita sex abuser problems & dirty cops.
Thank you for the information and insight! Unfortunately Wichita is my destination due to family and other factors at this time. It's interesting to get opinions from long time residents, it helps in my decision making process!
Anyone else a resident and have some information on the aforementioned questions I had?
This process could potentially take a few weeks or months, so not a time crunch
You're welcome. I should mention one more problem.
The same sex abuse family problem plagued northern suburb, Park City, 1960s to 1990s. When sheriff patrolled Park City, he allowed the predators to try to hunt down neighborhood kids to hurt. Kids had to know who and what to avoid (empty parks) so they would not get harmed. Young families were trapped by code inspectors into keeping their housing in neighborhood due to work done on houses without a permit. When 1990s began, this neighborhood incorporated and got it's own police who did not allow the hunting of the children...BUT, even in 2010, six families were run out of the neighborhood by thefts from locked up houses and someone who returned from vacation to find that someone had used their bathroom & locked it back up. Cops refused to investigate any of this & instead threatened the residents so badly, all ran away. At least a couple of these people had just purchased a home in this neighborhood a couple months before & abandoned the place, even leaving doors hanging open. Landlords have not been able to keep the rentals full in Park City either, some of these rentals were dumped at auction due to high vacancy rate in area. If I were you, renting is best option in this area as scams abound and there is no defense due to dirty legal problems here, except abandonment of the property. (Work for govt has been best option around here...School district is running an unalright shop, screwing multiple new hires at their school service center over decade. Rest of the govt jobs here will keep some of the local problems away unless you choose to socialize in a wealthy person here who backs a cause or you get chummy with coworkers at police department who will undo you...)
The poster above has been spreading this stuff on pretty much every thread about Wichita. It is unfortunate that they have apparently had some unpleasant experiences living here, and even more unfortunate they seem dead-set on spreading this as if a few anecdotal experiences apply to everyone in a ~400,000 person city... but I can assure you (as logic would dictate) that the issues they speak of are no more widespread or common than they are in any city. I will try to come back and post what I've learned since I moved here a year ago in a little bit, but in the mean time: Don't fret, and take the incredibly broad negative generalizations above with a huge grain of salt... Wichita has been a very comfortable place to live for me so far and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Okay, I'll take a stab at some of your questions here and see if there's anything I can add.
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Hi!
I'm currently in the process of researching a move to Wichita due to family matters. I haven't relocated very much in my lifetime, so I'm new at most things associated with such a move.
Unfortunately I have moved several times in the last few years so I know how stressful it can be. Don't worry, once it's all done you'll feel so relieved! (And swear to yourself you're never moving again, even though that's almost always a lie. )
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I'm needing advice on where to look for housing as far as websites, where to call, ect. I'm middle class, and prefer a nice place that is secure, and am not afraid of a commute from an outlying community if necessary.
This is hard to answer without more information. Are you buying or renting? What kind of criteria are you looking for? (Bedrooms, pets, apartment/house/condo/loft?)
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Also, is there perhaps a place that I can search online that will help me locate job opportunities in the area? Automotive repair and Nursing would be the primary areas I'm interested.
There are the standard websites like career builder and such, there are probably some postings through the local media outlets like the Wichita Eagle (kansas.com), and bigger companies will probably just post through their websites. For nursing it of course depends on your level of training... The biggest hospitals in the area are through the Via Christi Health system or Wesley Medical (an HCA hospital). Via Christi has a few hospitals and rehab facilities in the area, Wesley has two hospitals and some other facilities. There are of course other hospitals like Kansas Medical Center, Kansas Heart Hospital, Kansas Spine Hospital, Kansas Surgical Hospital, and a few LTAC hospitals as well. You're better off checking with them directly about job availability than looking for a one-stop job shopping website, some nursing positions fill before they're ever officially listed.
For automotive I can't provide much guidance since I don't know much about that field. I'd imagine your best bet would to be to check with the big dealerships in the area (there are many of course) and chain stores like Midas, Meineke, Sears, etc. for a place to start. Maybe not ideal long term (some people like working in the corporate shops, some don't), but it'd be a good foot in the door for the area to feel out where you'd like to end up at least.
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Any suggestions on where to live from current residents? Where not to live? Places NOT to work in the above mentioned fields?
Once again, this depends on what you're looking for... As a general rule of thumb, you can divide Wichita into 4 quadrants using I-135 and US 400 as your crosshairs.
The Northeast quadrant is typically thought of as the nicest part of the city... not because that's necessarily where everything nice actually is, but it is probably the most consistently nice/safe once you're east of Oliver Ave and north of Douglas Ave. Eastborough is very nice (along Douglas) and is technically it's own city right in the middle of Wichita, but it can be expensive and there aren't likely to be any rental options there if that's what you're looking for.
Southeast.... I have no idea honestly. I've never been south of Kellogg (US 400) on the east side other than to go to St. Joe hospital and it didn't seem terribly nice. Not dangerous, just not nice.
Downtown has some good loft and apartment options, and the Riverside area is beautiful from a parks/trails standpoint. Like any city, those areas have a variety of elements that drift through, but overall I consider downtown and Riverside pretty safe and have never been concerned when I've been down there alone at night or anything. But if you're looking for a house, rentals are less likely and pricing in the nicer parts of Riverside can get expensive. If you're looking more for apartments/condos/lofts though, there are some good options around that area if you like a little more "city living" atmosphere (or at least as much as you can really get in a city of ~400,000).
The "West side" is less hard and fast about using a north-south dividing line as there are areas on the south side of 400 that are decent, but the nicest areas are west of I-235 and along/north of 13th street. There are nice areas scattered throughout the west side though so that's less of a "rule" than the criteria I mentioned above for the northeast part of town.
Outlying areas:
Andover is on the east edge and is quite nice. It has a broad range of homes ranging from affordable/entry-level middle class up to neighborhoods that start ~$800k. I know some people that rent houses out there so there are rent options as well. It's a growing area, has good schools, and as far as most of the suburbs go, is a more tolerable commute than most (IMO). Very safe area.
Bel Aire is right on the north edge of the city (on the east) and is one of the more established suburbs. It's not big, but is close to a lot of things and is very convenient to the shopping/dining areas of Rock Road and Woodlawn Blvd on the east side. Houses range from very affordable 1970s/80s homes to brand new construction. It's also growing, though not as fast as Andover. Also a nice, safe, area. Very close to Koch's headquarters, a huge employer, though it doesn't sound like either of your job fields are in industries they're involved in so that may not matter to you.
Kechi is just north of Bel Aire... It's a funny place. It feels like a little farming town in the middle of nowhere that just happens to be on the edge of Wichita. If you want to feel like you're living in the country while still being close to Wichita, Kechi is kind of a cute little place.
Park City/Valley Center are due north of the city. I know people that live there and have heard good things, but I rarely go up in that area so I don't know much about them.
Maize is in the far Northwest part of the city, which is a very nice area overall. I am not up there much but the schools have a good reputation and it's known to be a very safe area. The retail/dining options on the Northwest region of the city have really been expanding in the last several years and it's a growing area.
Goddard... I've never been that far west in the city. Schools have a good reputation, but it's really pretty far west.
Haysville I've only driven through once. It looked nice enough, a bit more farm/rural and lot of horse-y/equestrian focused things advertised down there. I don't know much about it though.
Derby is way the heck south east but has a good reputation. Good schools, affordable housing, safe area. Too far out for my tastes, but I know people that live down there and really like it.
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Thanks for the help!
I hope some of that helps. It's hard to answer some of your questions without more specific information, but maybe that broad overview will help a little. I moved to Wichita for work (by choice) a year ago and have enjoyed it so far. It's an underrated city that has a lot of good things going for it and I think will continue to get nicer in the next several years. The biggest issue I've noticed, which is not unique to Wichita but does seem most pronounced here of anywhere I've lived, is that the people that have lived here forever or don't really know what it's like to live anywhere else are very negative about their own city. Don't get me wrong, they're super friendly here, but it still shocks me that they don't realize how nice/comfortable things here really are compared to a lot of cities in the US. To talk to some of the long-time (or lifetime) residents here, you'd think it's some hellhole of a city that's going to pot, but if you talk to people that chose to move here you'll realize that's not the case. It's a comfortable city with a low cost of living and pretty impressive cultural offerings for a city its size, and with the improvements and developments going on downtown, and in the NE and NW parts of the city, I think it's going to continue to get nicer.
Best of luck with your search and eventual move!
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