NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Cleveland's foreclosure crisis is no longer a problem that's just for the poor.

In the city's central neighborhoods, it's been common for years: Low-income homeowners living on a financial edge were also preyed on by abusive lenders during the nation's recent housing bubble.

But now the mess has spread to Cleveland's wealthy suburbs, where delinquency filings have exploded over the past year despite residents' relative prosperity and supposedly higher education levels. The numbers are even beginning to eclipse those of the city.

In Shaker Heights, the model of an affluent Midwestern suburb, the problem "is huge," said Mark Seifert, executive director of the East Side Organizing Project (ESOP), a community advocacy group in Cleveland.

Foreclosure filings in its 44118 ZIP code nearly tripled to 910 in the first 10 months of 2007 from 334 during the same period a year ago, according to RealtyTrac. But the foreclosure rate in Cleveland proper, while still among the highest in the nation, has slowed down, although filings have doubled over the same period.

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