The unrelenting recession is turning middle-class enclaves in Washington’s suburbs into 21st-century slums as empty McMansions turn into flophouses and once-prosperous families turn to government aid to feed themselves.

The suburbs’ share of local poverty grew by 7 percent between 2000 and 2008, a new Brookings Institution report found. About 62 percent of the region’s poor lived in suburbs in 2000; by 2008, the percentage had grown to nearly 70 percent. Even those who have avoided foreclosure are still walking a razor’s edge.