No worries, all views and opinions need to be welcome for op to make an informed decision for themselves. 2 things I will say is the drug problem has gotten better, there was a point like 15 or 20 years ago that Longview was called the meth capital of the world. It's still not good, but that moniker hasn't been used in quite a while. And you're correct that the homeless issue is all over the pnw, however Longview decided roughly 8-10 years ago to shut down their only homeless shelter, which made the problem become much more in-your-face a few years before it became like that with the rest of the pnw, and then made park camping illegal. My understanding is that it's gotten a bit better, but for a couple years the park around lake sac turned into Portlands Delta Park every night, and I'm betting a lot of the people bringing up the homeless have that stuck in their mind

Oh yeah. We had pocket issues over that here in Vancouver, up there it was a mark of pride to be "unafraid" of any virus, while simultaneously being terrified of a shot

It's highly regressive, and not at all progressive.

There's a very clear divide between the have and have not areas. For reference, my buddy and his wife bought a place there about 5 years ago. For the same money, they could have bought 5 houses on the other end of town, but wife wasn't willing to live in what she considered a shithole. For the money they spent, they could have lived in a better overall city and commuted. It's had a drug problem for quite some time, in large part due to the fact that outside of outdoorsy stuff and redneck bars there isn't shit all to do.