By Mike Hazlip—
Theresa and Kenneth Harrington say pulling up stakes in Citrus Heights to move their young family of four more than 2,000 miles across the country was not a decision they took lightly.
In an interview Saturday with The Sentinel, the couple said several factors figured into their move across the country.
“For us it was a little bit more of a methodical process,” Kenneth Harrington said. “Once I became a remote employee, we just knew living here would be untenable because of the overall market and how competitive it is in California.”
Kenneth Harrington works as a project manager for a medical technology company and started working from home during the pandemic. Then employees at his company voted to make working from home permanent.
With Kenneth Harrington working from home permanently and Theresa homeschooling their two boys, the family was outgrowing their three-bedroom, two-bath home in the northwestern area of Citrus Heights.
“It just quickly became evident it was going to be a little tough in this house to be able to do that,” Theresa Harrington said, adding that California’s response to the pandemic was another factor.
“We didn’t want to go back to the measures that California took during COVID,” she said. “We wanted to go to a state that was going to be a little less restrictive.”
With no limit to where they could work from, the Harrington’s looked at several other states, eventually settling on an area about an hour north of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
“They have an aquarium, they have a zoo, just lots of things we can go do without being in too crowded of a place,” Theresa Harrington said. “There’s more land and it just feels like America.”
The house the couple purchased is across the street from friends who also moved from Citrus Heights, Harrington said. Work still needs to be done on the home before the family can move in, but they will gain about 1,500-square-feet of living space in their new home and about an acre of land.
Theresa Harrington also said crime was a factor that further influenced their decision to move. She said a recent incident with an officer involved shooting of a suspect armed with an unloaded handgun less than a mile from their home was further confirmation for her of an increase in crime throughout the area.
“In general, the homelessness, the crime, the drugs and things like that,” she said. “I don’t feel comfortable taking my kids to parks as much any more. The walking paths around the city don’t feel as safe.”
Related: Why this Citrus Heights couple sold their home and is moving to Idaho
The Harrington’s join many others who have made the move out of the Golden State in recent years, contributing to the state’s net loss of more than 100,000 residents last year. A poll conducted in 2019 by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found more than half of California’s registered voters have given either serious or some consideration of moving out of state, with top reasons cited as high housing costs, high taxes, and the “state’s political culture.”
For the Harrington’s, the decision was summed up with a move in search of a better future for their family.
“We have the opportunity, and you have that drive to want to do something new and go on that adventure,” said Theresa Harrington. “[To] really seek out what our values are consistent with and what’s going to give us the life that truly enriches our children and enriches our family the most.”
*This story is the first in a series looking at the reasons why people are moving both to and from Citrus Heights. Our next story will feature the reasons why one family opted to make the move to Citrus Heights.
