Moving to lake county, how do I find rentals?

My partner(36m) and I(36f) moved to Indiana from Florida last year (hurricane destroyed our home and his family lives up here).

We had to move to NWI because that’s where his new Chicago job suggested we stay. We noticed up here they don’t really put houses to rent on Zillow or realtor or anything like that and we had to drive around to find something while we were staying in Indy which was A DRIVE. We ended up in Michigan city and while we love the house 3 bed / 2 ba with 2 car garage and fenced in yard for $1,700 , we aren’t a fan of Michigan city and need to move closer so he’s not traveling over an hr to work every day.

We have heard good things about lake county like Whiting and Hammond but don’t know where to look for houses to rent from.

Anyone know where to look? We’ve tried different apps and I joined a bunch of Facebook groups but they are full of spammy posts from scammers. Any sites or places or anything to help us find anything? We need to move by September.

It’s just two of us, I work from home in tech and he’s a combat vet and a veteran liaison helping vets find medical and homeless help. We have 1 cat. We’re not smokers, we have a good rental history, no evictions or issues, were looking for roughly the same thing or bigger (3bed / 2 bath garage and possibly a basement ) for roughly the same price. (Not sure what the normal cost is around there).

I was told to avoid looking in Gary, honestly we would love to find somewhere that has stuff to do, good food, bars, parks, comedy clubs, community events, markets, we also love hiking and kayaking.