Photos: High hopes and dashed dreams in the High Desert

Graffiti has become a common sight in Mission Crest, such as on this traffic sign on the edge of the subdivision.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

A boarded-up house on Redondo Avenue in Mission Crest. Today homeowners pass along anxious stories about their community — churches set up in garages, houses turned into rentals, gangs moving in, subsidized housing taking over blocks — without knowing what is true and what isn’t.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

A flower pot with “welcome” written on it lies on the front porch of a Mission Crest home whose owners were evicted.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

A notice explaining what has happened to the personal property of the evicted residents hangs on the front door of this house in Mission Crest.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

Neighborhood children -- including Angel Rios, 7, here pitching -- have plenty of room to play baseball on one of the many empty lots in Mission Crest.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

Martin, who didn’t want to give his last name, holds a garage sale at the home he rents on Lone Pine Court. Because his work in the construction industry has been very slow the last two months, he’s afraid he and his family are going to have to “downsize” soon.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

Evelyn Venegas, 4, right, and Jesus Lopez, 3, play outside the Lopez home in Mission Crest before going to a wedding.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

Zayzay Walker, 16, dances with friends (not pictured) at the playground in Malibu Park. The playground seemed to be a central hangout for kids and young adults alike.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

A group of neighbors play a pickup basketball game on Guadalupe Avenue in Mission Crest. Most Angelenos know the High Desert as a blur of billboards just beyond the Cajon Pass, 80 miles from downtown Los Angeles, the start of the Mojave, that lengthy inconvenience en route to Las Vegas.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

Mission Crest residents fight playfully on Guadalupe Street. From left to right are Anthony Clemmons, 15, Brandon Perez, 15, and Christopher Paitino, 12.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

Dawn and Michael Meenan pose for a portrait in the home they are renting in Hesperia. The Meenans bought their first house in Mission Crest and watched as it was being built in 2006. After three years of living the “American dream,” they lost their home.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

Dawn Meenan holds a postcard with a photo of the home they had built in Mission Crest. The Meenans picked their lot in the spring of 2006 and moved in shortly thereafter. “We had a responsibility to pay for our house,” she said. “Walking away was hard to accept.”  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

The sun sets over the Mission Crest subdivision in the town of Hesperia. Properties that once sold for nearly $400,000 are worth less than $200,000.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)

A crow sits on top of an unfinished house on Pearblossom Street in Mission Crest.  (Katie Falkenberg / For The Times)