America's Foreclosure Ghost Towns -- Photos From HuffPost Readers

Since 2007, news of the foreclosure crisis has been nearly constant. Recently, the at-times bombarding reports of unscrupulous banks, unfair foreclosure proceedings and expected increases in foreclosures make it easy to forget what all this bad news actually means: real families are being forced to abandon their homes.

The housing crisis has been well documented by professional photographers in foreclosure hot spots like Detroit and Las Vegas. But is there evidence of it elsewhere? Two weeks ago the Huffington Post asked people across the country to send in photos of homes abandoned by foreclosure in their own neighborhoods.

Within minutes after posting, responses from across the country came pouring in. An empty swimming pool in Lancaster, CA, a factory with smashed in windows in Connecticut, even a sunken boat in Florida, all drove home the sad reality that the foreclosure crisis isn't just something we read about online or see on TV: it's happening to real people in real communities throughout the country.

Below are some of the most disturbing images of the foreclosure crisis from the very neighborhoods of Huffington Post readers.