Decided Houston is not for me
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5/11/2018
We moved to Houston a week after Harvey and saw stores and houses with all the residents ruined belongings in piles at curbside. Everyone was in shock and people. We stayed in a motel the first few nights which was full of people displaced from the flood. It was sad but most people were kind. Then I started watching the news and paying closer attention. Good thing we signed a lease before a month before Harvey, cause afterwards landlords jacked up their rents buy hundreds of dollars a month. Even the hotels did, the hotel clerk was surprised we had such a low rate until we told him we booked before Harvey. A bunch of hotels raised their rates. Housing prices went up as well, crap shacks in popular neighborhoods go for $500,000. We started exploring and saw signs of gentrification all over the place, which can be good. But of coarse the new houses are 4 to 5 times higher and people are being driven out of their neighborhoods. There are up and coming posh neighborhoods of only white people in expensive houses, which is crazy given the makeup of Houston. Then there is the crime all over the city, such as car jackings, robberies, home evasions while residents are home, gun fights in public, etc.. Every where else I've lived bicycling was a chosen way to get around. I've biked with my kids through major cities, regions with steep hills, long rides though country, I always felt moderately safe. I have not and will not bicycle in Houston, killing cyclists seems to be a sport here. There is barley any public transportation, outside of the loop sidewalks are non existent. If you do have sidewalks its cause the HOA put them in and chances are they go no where. In the eight months I've lived here I've meet several people who've been run over by cars while bicycling that resulted in serious injuries. That was biking in their neighborhood. I know another man who saw a member of his bicycle club run over right in front of him. There are 5,000 police for all of Houston, Chicago has 12,000. Their populations are about the same. Lots of people I've meet have guns, a number of comments I read on Nextdoor are people posting about suspicious characters in the area, which always is followed up by comments of making sure you have your gun ready. People post about walking outside with their guns. Road rage is a huge problem here, I've had numerous close calls by people speeding up to pass me, cutting me off, then slamming on their brakes to make a right turn. There are tunnels under all of downtown which is nice, everyone takes them to walk between buildings to avoid the summer heat or bad weather. The museum district is awesome and its great how there all near one another. Bicyclists do get run over by the museums. We're homeschooling our kids, which is really easy to do in Texas, because the public schools here are horrible. A majority of the other homeschoolers are devote Christians, but there are more secular parents forming groups. A lot of the museums offer programs for homeschooled children. Houston offers a lot for parents that choose that route. The State seems to hate Houston and public education, board members keep leaving, I've heard complaints from parents who send their children to them. You can opt out to send your kids to Charter Schools, but there doesn't seem to be much oversight of them. They keep getting great reviews but I don't trust the sources of those reviews. The Houston Chronicle is a good paper and gives an accurate look at life here. Dogs roaming the streets is another big problem. I've seen pitbulls walking around down the street with no owner in site. We have two small children and I won't let them play outside our backyard. I thought maybe I'm overreacting until I opened my garage and starting backing out and saw there was a pitbull in our driveway. Sure it has a cutting edge medical center that people come from all over the world for help. Hopefully you don't have to go to the ER at an in network (for your insurance) hospital only to have an out of network dr treat you, cause that's going to cost you huge amounts. NPR local station was reporting of Houston residents getting massive medical bills afterwards. That just happened to us. Our insurance said don't fight it cause the dr could actually decide to charge you more. According to a CNN report Houston is one of the leading cities for these type of inflated charges. The Oil and Gas industry is hurting, I've meet people that have lost there jobs in that field. There are some that are moving away for work in that field. We're here for a few more years, but I'll be happy to leave this city.
Jason | Houston, TX