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The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.

The unraveling of the region known as the Inland Empire reads like a 21st century version of “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck’s novel about families driven from their lands by the Great Depression.

As more families throw in the towel and head to foreclosure here and across the nation, the social costs of collapse are adding up in the form of higher rates of homelessness, crime and even disease.

While no current residents claim to be victims of foreclosure, all agree that tent city is a symptom of the wider economic downturn. And it’s just a matter of time before foreclosed families end up at tent city, local housing experts say.

“They don’t hit the streets immediately,” said activist Jane Mercer. Most families can find transitional housing in a motel or with friends before turning to charity or the streets. “They only hit tent city when they really bottom out.”

Steve, 50, who declined to give his last name, moved to tent city four months ago. He gets social security payments, but cannot work and said rents are too high.

“House prices are going down, but the rentals are sky-high,” said Steve. “If it wasn’t for here, I wouldn’t have a place to go.”

‘SQUATTING IN VACANT HOUSES’

Nationally, foreclosures are at an all-time high. Filings are up nearly 100 percent from a year ago, according to the data firm RealtyTrac. Officials say that as many as half a million people could lose their homes as adjustable mortgage rates rise over the next two years.

California ranks second in the nation for foreclosure filings — one per 88 households last quarter. Within California, San Bernardino county in the Inland Empire is worse — one filing for every 43 households, according to RealtyTrac.

Maryanne Hernandez bought her dream house in San Bernardino in 2003 and now risks losing it after falling four months behind on mortgage payments.

“It’s not just us. It’s all over,” said Hernandez, who lives in a neighborhood where most families are struggling to meet payments and many have lost their homes.

She has noticed an increase in crime since the foreclosures started. Her house was robbed, her kids’ bikes were stolen and she worries about what type of message empty houses send.

The pattern is cropping up in communities across the country, like Cleveland, Ohio, where Mark Wiseman, director of the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program, said there are entire blocks of homes in Cleveland where 60 or 70 percent of houses are boarded up.

“I don’t think there are enough police to go after criminals holed up in those houses, squatting or doing drug deals or whatever,” Wiseman said.

“And it’s not just a problem of a neighborhood filled with people squatting in the vacant houses, it’s the people left behind, who have to worry about people taking siding off your home or breaking into your house while you’re sleeping.”