Update:
We sold the house and have moved into the new place. The new house was more than we would of liked to have spent but it's worth it. It has an acre of land and all my neighbors are friendly older people (50+) which makes for a quiet neighborhood.
It was a huge pain in the butt to make it all happen. First we painted the old home, rebuilt the front porch, touched up some things on the interior, etc.. before we put it up for sale. The house sold fairly quickly which put us in a bind to find a new one. It probably took a month to find the right house. Only problem was we were out of time at the former house so we had to live with my brother sleeping on a twin bed for a little while till we could move into our new house. Not to mention we also had to move all our furniture twice since we couldn't move straight into the new home.
It was the right time move. Things were steadily getting worse in that neighborhood. Right before we sold the house there were a couple neighbors that had their trucks stolen. It was almost becoming a regular occurrence to see the police at a house on the street. They were actually in full pursuit of a guy right across the street.
I guess the moral of the story is if you're in a bad situation as I was it's possible to change it. It was a lot of hard work but it's paid off.