Communities suffer as foreclosure rate rises
Gut Check: Readers report lonely streets, rundown homes, service cutbacks



A foreclosed home is shown in Stockton, Calif., one of the nation's worst housing markets. Home foreclosures first started rising in overheated housing markets in California and Florida but now are spreading to other regions.

By John W. Schoen
Senior Producer
MSNBC
updated 10:57 a.m. ET, Tues., June. 24, 2008

As mortgage defaults and foreclosures continue to rise, the impact is spreading well beyond those who are losing their homes.

In communities across the country, msnbc.com readers report that local governments are coping with shrinking tax rolls, lenders are saddled with more foreclosed homes than they can sell and empty homes in many neighborhoods are being vandalized.

Like everything associated with the nation's housing crisis, the fallout from foreclosures is very local, a fact confirmed by hundreds of e-mails from readers in msnbc.com's Gut Check America. Some regions appear to have escaped relatively unscathed. But in hard-hit states like California, Arizona and Florida, readers report that some neighborhoods are becoming virtual ghost towns.

In Indian Harbour Beach, Fla., “lots of homes have been abandoned by their owners, and many people are going into bankruptcy,â€