Foreclosure crisis has ripple effect

USA Today reports, "The mortgage foreclosure crisis has caused a drop in cities' revenues, a spike in crime, more homelessness and an increase in vacant properties, a survey of elected local officials out today shows."

"About two-thirds of 211 officials surveyed by the National League of Cities reported an increase in foreclosures in their cities in the past year, according to the online and e-mail questionnaire. A third of them reported a drop in revenues and an increase in abandoned and vacant properties and urban blight."

"'There's a reduction in revenues at the same time that more services are needed,' says Cynthia McCollum, president of the National League of Cities and councilwoman in Madison, Ala., a suburb of Huntsville. 'Because of foreclosures, people are stealing, crime is on the rise and we don't have more money for cops on the street.'"