Any folks familiar with Forest County? (locals or part timers)

[BCI Instructor]

Hello, any folks familiar with Forest County?
(locals or part timers, seems to be a very popular vacation / 2nd home area)


I need to do some preliminary research on temporarily, later possibly permanently, relocating to this area.

I am interested generally in any of the 8 townships
(BARNETT, GREEN , HARMONY , HICKORY, HOWE, JENKS, KINGSLEY, TIONESTA) or the borough of TIONESTA, but I am VERY interested in HOWE or BARNETT specifically.

Key areas of interest:
-- Inexpensive short term housing (2 - 9 months) that I would essentially ben in part time while I see if I can get a project off the ground that would relocate me there permanently. A homeshare, or a month to month rental of someone's modest vacation / hunting cabin or modular / mobile home might be ideal.
-- Info on local employment, I believe there are state / private Adult and Juvenille correctional facilities, a 30 - 60 minute drive to work is do-able so work in an adjacent county (Warren, Venange. Elk, Clarion, Jefferson) is within consideration as I may need a "day" job to supplement my income while I get my own pursuits up and running ...

Any suggestions as to local websites, what newspaper/s are the papers of record and used for local advertising, etc ... would also be appreciated.

I have a residence in Pittsburgh, PA and a second home in southwest Virginia, an excellent credit history and I'm subject to a _daily_ background check for my employment - most any landlord would love me

Thanks in advance ...

[knight0334]

Hello, any folks familiar with Forest County?
(locals or part timers, seems to be a very popular vacation / 2nd home area)


I need to do some preliminary research on temporarily, later possibly permanently, relocating to this area.

I am interested generally in any of the 8 townships
(BARNETT, GREEN , HARMONY , HICKORY, HOWE, JENKS, KINGSLEY, TIONESTA) or the borough of TIONESTA, but I am VERY interested in HOWE or BARNETT specifically.

Key areas of interest:
-- Inexpensive short term housing (2 - 9 months) that I would essentially ben in part time while I see if I can get a project off the ground that would relocate me there permanently. A homeshare, or a month to month rental of someone's modest vacation / hunting cabin or modular / mobile home might be ideal.
-- Info on local employment, I believe there are state / private Adult and Juvenille correctional facilities, a 30 - 60 minute drive to work is do-able so work in an adjacent county (Warren, Venange. Elk, Clarion, Jefferson) is within consideration as I may need a "day" job to supplement my income while I get my own pursuits up and running ...

Any suggestions as to local websites, what newspaper/s are the papers of record and used for local advertising, etc ... would also be appreciated.

I have a residence in Pittsburgh, PA and a second home in southwest Virginia, an excellent credit history and I'm subject to a _daily_ background check for my employment - most any landlord would love me

Thanks in advance ...

I have friends in Forest Co. I'm there just about every weekend(just came from there an hour ago). Housing is pretty cheap compared to the big cities. The juvenile and adult detention centers are located in and just outside Marienville. My best friend/ex-fiancee' is a juvenile counselor at Abraxas. She's constantly griping about their ethics and policy, alot of which is more focused at harassing staff than it is to help the juveniles.

The adult center employees alot of the folks in the area. I dont hear any bad things about them though. A lot of the prison employee's can be found at Ray's Hotspot on friday/saturday nites.

The rural parts are absolutely beautiful there. LOTS of woods and fields to hunt, some private, some public.

I can start looking for places for rent/lease/sale if you're really interested. There is a motel or two in Marienville for really short term stay if need be. There are some mobile homes, camps and houses for rent/lease in that area. I dont have a listing available, but I'll look around.

Clarion is about as close to the jails as Tionesta is, probably a faster drive due to road selection. Clarion's rent/lease will be more expensive due to it being a college town.

The 30-60 minute drive thing is really relative to the weather here. Forest County get dumped on badly, and roads aren't cleared as well as they are in other places. Big trees come down across the roads often too. I may only get 6 inches of snow here 25miles south of my friends, but they may get 2-3 times that in same time period.

[Paradigm]

Youth detention facilities:
- Franklin (Venango County) has VisionQuest
- Grove City (Mercer County) has George Junior Republic

The big problem in the rural areas in NWPA (which is probably true all over) is that there has been quite a bit of meth lab activity. There have been some big busts around this corner of the state in the last year. Just letting you know...



All that said, NWPA is beautiful...I love it here.

[BCI Instructor]

Just a quick note of thanks before I hit the road for the day (long day ahead)

Knight, thank you for the detailed reply.
I could definitely use a bit of help re: available rentals.
I'll PM you with my direct contact / email info when I have more time online, over the next day or so.

Paradigm, appreciate the info on the facilities in neighboring counties.
Also, thanks for the head's up on the Meth Zombies

Again, thank you very kindly ...

[knight0334]

Just a quick note of thanks before I hit the road for the day (long day ahead)

Knight, thank you for the detailed reply.
I could definitely use a bit of help re: available rentals.
I'll PM you with my direct contact / email info when I have more time online, over the next day or so.

Paradigm, appreciate the info on the facilities in neighboring counties.
Also, thanks for the head's up on the Meth Zombies

Again, thank you very kindly ...

okie dokies.. I'll start making note of places for you as I come across them.

[BCI Instructor]

okie dokies.. I'll start making note of places for you as I come across them.

thanks Knight, PM sent ...

[knight0334]

I haven't had a chance to do any looking in the last week or so. Been pretty busy with work and getting for a trip to TX.

[BCI Instructor]

Understood, no problem Knight. Whatever you can, whenever you can, I'm grateful. Just have to be locations physically located in Forest County, anything is great but Howe and Barnett Townships are specific areas of interest.

If you have any online sources / local websites / local newspaper's online listings, etc ... I'd appreciate any links or sources that I could research.
Google doesnt return much in the way of searches for up that way

[Paradigm]

You won't find too many online newspapers in NWPA...

You can look up each county's website and see if there are any outside links posted. You could also look up each county's chamber of commerce. That will return a decent amount of useful data.

[BCI Instructor]

Appreciate the suggestions Paradigm, I've found a couple of local govt websites but hadnt tried the Chamber of Commerce angle yet ... thank you