Houston is a good place to live. You can live cheap or not usually within a few miles of each other. Traffic can be rough so ask locals before moving somewhere more than 10ish miles from work. Distances can be very decieving because of traffic. I live inside the inner loop and I enjoy it. Once you get further out it gets very suburban. A little further out and it gets very country.
I checked out Community FD at one point. They do pay a stipend on a per call basis fyi. They are a good outfit but I don't like the combined fire/ems systems. Nice folks though but a little over the top during the orientation. Kind of turned me off.
Also for volunteer spots you can try CCEMS if you end up in north Houston, or Freindswood fire department in South Houston. Both are good outfits to vollie with.
Again remember Houston is enormous. It's easier to think about it as lots of small towns that happen to be in the same city. Each area has it's own style and populations. Proximity on a map mean nothing here.
edit: because of the unique zoning laws here this goes for good areas/ bad areas as well. You can live in a million dollar neighborhood but be one street over from some of the roughest hoods in Texas. I paid 45k for my one bedroom 5 years ago and the 4 bd town home next door sold at the same time for 640k and the houses across the street are 3bd 1950s ranch and they were selling for 750k-1 mil +.
I checked out Community FD at one point. They do pay a stipend on a per call basis fyi. They are a good outfit but I don't like the combined fire/ems systems. Nice folks though but a little over the top during the orientation. Kind of turned me off.
$5 per call. $10 after 10. Only after you are cleared as a 2nd. Im still riding as a third. The orientation for me was pretty boring. Just sat there while they read off a sheet.