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,” wrote a reader named Robert. “Whole condo projects sit half-finished and rotting in the Florida sun. On some streets almost half the homes are empty. Many people have lost 40-50 percent of the value of their homes. “
Others report a different kind of isolation; many of those losing their home to foreclosure are reluctant to confide in family or friends…
