Some close friends of mine live on the west side of Lakewood, almost Steilacoom, about 5 minutes from Ft. Steilacoom Park. That area seems really nice, pretty quite, about 20 minutes from 6th Ave in Tacoma. It seems like they have less crime around there than we do around my place (South Tacoma/Lincoln District). Your dollars will definitely go further there for housing than in Tacoma proper. As others have said, Lakewood close to JBLM is pretty shitty. Like anywhere else, there are good parts of town and bad parts of town.