Seekers, Drawn to Las Vegas, Find a Broken Promised LandMay 30, 2004 By DEAN E. MURPHY LAS VEGAS, May 29 - South on Las Vegas Boulevard, wellbeyond the casino-scraped skyline, there is a three-storyhotel where tourists seldom go. The parking lot is sprinkled with U-Haul trucks andtrailers. A school bus stops at the front office. A sign onthe lawn offers discounts for guests who stay a week ormore. Inside the no-frills rooms, where sheets and blankets costextra, a desert city's promise of new beginnings isregularly put to the test. This busy hotel and others inthe Budget Suites of America chain are the cinder-blockequivalent of circled wagon trains, a community ofdreamers, pioneers and strivers pulling up for a while enroute to someplace and something better. "When we got here, I slept wrapped up in my dad's shirts,"said Jamie Rose Galloway, a toughened California transplantwhose family recently passed her 17th birthday in atwo-room unit at the back. "We've been through worse. Wewere homeless once and lived in my dad's truck." Many newcomers to Las Vegas use the Budget Suites to findtheir footing in the slippery city, the eye of a populationstorm that has transformed the American desert from forlornfrontier to chosen land over the last three decades. The metamorphosis has not only altered the barren landscape- Las Vegas and its suburbs in Clark County unfold across235 square miles of desert, compared with 38 square milesin 1970 - it has exacted a social price that many newcomersfind unbearable. Based on federal tax returns, the Internal Revenue Serviceestimates that nearly 55,000 people gave up on their dreamof living in southern Nevada last year and moved elsewhere.A study in 2003 by the Fordham Institute for Innovation inSocial Policy identified Nevada and its neighbors Arizonaand New Mexico as "social recession" states because ofchronic problems like crime, child poverty, suicide amongthe elderly, and high school dropouts. "It is just growing too fast for its own good," said SarahS., a 25-year-old bartender from Missouri, who put up atthe Budget Suites on her way to Dallas with her husband and6-year-old daughter after two years in Las Vegas. "I don'tgive out our full name to anyone. I learned that livinghere." The hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard South, like seven otherBudget Suites in the city and its suburbs, is owned byRobert T. Bigelow, a wealthy businessman and U.F.O.enthusiast who a few years ago pledged to spend $500million developing tourism in space. On earth, Mr.Bigelow's properties are the buzz of the Internet amongpeople mulling a move to Nevada, the nation's fastestgrowing state for 17 consecutive years, and even with theflaws, its newest perpetual dream machine. "We were pretty lucky and our only problem was kids racingshopping carts down the hill in the parking lot," one newresident, Walt Flesher, wrote in recommending the BudgetSuites on the Web site www.movetolasvegas.com. "Smashedinto the side of my wife's car a week before we moved out."Mr. Flesher, 61, and his wife, Shelley, 57, spent threemonths in a two-bedroom unit on Boulder Highway, pilingtheir furniture from their townhouse in Anaheim, Calif.,into the extra room. They moved out last spring to thesouthern fringe of the desert after buying a $193,000 housewith a brown gravel yard and a twinkling view of the Strip.A year later, the desert has retreated and the view is nowof a column of newer houses with gravel yards. Mr.Flesher's primary preoccupation, his search for a permanentjob, just ended. A computer system administrator byprofession, he began working in the front office of arepair shop for Rolls-Royces and other luxury cars. TheFleshers celebrated with a $5.99-per-person steak andlobster dinner at a nearby casino. "Thank God for the housing inflation in California, becausewe came out here with a good chunk of change," Mr. Fleshersaid. "I sent out lots of résumés and made lots of phonecalls, but it was hard to even get an interview." Waiting for the 'Brink's Truck' The Budget Suites requireno long-term commitments or credit cards. While that meanslittle to guests with financial resources, it opens thedoors to legions of credit-unworthy Americans. They arrivewith a basic yearning for a good job and a house,regardless of the bumps on the road that brought them here."People really did once just pass through here, and nowmore and more they stay," said Hal K. Rothman, a professorof history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who haswritten extensively about the city. "Most everyone whocomes here plans to move on. It is an opportunity stop. Butwhat happens when this town loves you, it backs the Brink'struck up to you, and lets you take what you want." Jamie Rose's mother, Lori Galloway, is still waiting forthat truck. She is the family's self-appointed cheerleader,seeing a garden with roses and daffodils in their futureeven as she recounts one hard-luck story after another. At one low point in their lives in California, she wouldslip bologna and cheese under her blouse when buying breadat the grocery store. "What would you have done if yourchildren were hungry?" she asked directly. "I could onlyafford the bread." Things here are already better. She can keep meals on thetable by making the rounds at church-run food pantries andfrequenting bargain buffets at the casinos. She collectedher family's simple white dishware by playing a game thechildren call Dumpster diving. She found the vacuum cleanerthat way, too. The two blankets on their bed belong to a young mother inan upstairs unit. She lent them when her daughter, whoplays with Breanne, Jamie Rose's 10-year-old sister, toldher that Breanne was cold at night. The Galloway sistersshare the family's only bed at the Budget Suites. "I think this is going to be better for my kids," said Mrs.Galloway, whose 21-year-old son in California is expectedto join them here this summer. "Jamie Rose likes to cook,and there is a great culinary school here." Mrs. Galloway, 44, can take to complaining about gainingweight because of her heart medicine and about a governmentthat does not seem much interested in helping families likehers, though she does collect a disability check everyother week. But she catches herself. "I sure would like a little more house," she said from thehotel sofa that doubles as her bed, before suggesting morecheerfully, "We are more of a family here." Denny Cowie, who took a room in the building behind theGalloways after a divorce, holds a dark view of thehundreds of dreamy-eyed migrants he has encountered. Hecalls them "migrates" and says he also has no experiencewith any metaphorical Brink's truck doling out easy riches.Many dreams here go bad, Mr. Cowie explained between sipsof beer outside his second-floor room, and his neighborsinevitably come begging - for alcohol, cigarettes, food andmoney. The downward spiral can get ugly, he said. "There is nothing like coming home from work and seeing asquad car in the parking lot picking someone up," said Mr.Cowie, himself a migrant from Iowa. "Or watching doors getreplaced with big holes kicked in them or TV's with bulletholes. That stuff happens here all the time." Like many of the Budget Suites' more grizzled residents,Mr. Cowie, who is 63, hides a softer side. Just inside hisroom is a desk arranged with yellowing photographs of hissix sons from two marriages and the 1951 Ford pickup heused to race. In the kitchenette at the far end, Mr. Cowiekeeps a cupboard stocked with bags of macaroni and cans oftomato sauce. He buys the stash at a nearby 99 Cents Only Store, to giveto his hotel neighbors when they run out of food. Seduction and Delusion "People can get devoured in thiscity," said Mr. Cowie, who works at a print shop thatproduces sex-business handouts available on many streetcorners. "The people staying here could be waiting for ahouse or an apartment, or maybe they have run away fromsomething. There's no way of knowing." This is Las Vegas, after all, a place of seduction anddelusion that treats its residents much like its visitors,anointing some as instant kings and queens while stubbornlyrefusing to make good on its promise to countless others.The Nevada state demographer, Jeff Hardcastle, said somesurveys estimate that for every two new arrivals in LasVegas and surrounding Clark County, one person leaves. Thelatest I.R.S. data puts the ratio closer to 1.5 to 1. "You have people bouncing in and bouncing out," Mr.Hardcastle said. No matter. More keep coming than leave from all corners ofthe United States, most in the single-minded pursuit ofhomeownership. "There is money to be made in this town," said Rita Pina,46, of Oakland, Calif., who has set up house in a BudgetSuites near the North Las Vegas airport with her husband,Israel. "The plan is to get jobs, and within two years, buyourselves a house." The legions of hopeful settlers are so ample that officialshere have trouble keeping up with the count. Mr.Hardcastle's official forecast shows the state's populationgrowing by 1.3 million over the next 20 years, to 3.6million. But no one really knows. Driver's licenses are one measure. In April, nearly 6,200people traded in their licenses to the Nevada Department ofMotor Vehicles, nearly all of them here in Clark County.They came from 49 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and Canada. InMarch, the number exceeded 8,000. In 2003, about 250 peoplea day on average made the switch. A House Built Every 20 Minutes The new residents are onlythe latest to join a human procession decades long that ismuch bigger than Las Vegas. More than seven million peoplehave moved to four states in the arid Southwest since 1970,churning sand dunes into urban concrete from Tucson to St.George, Utah. Las Vegas and its suburbs have been a favored destinationbecause of an abundance of work related to the gamblingindustry and an expanding stockpile of cheap housing. Thestate's casinos won $930 million from gamblers in March,breaking a record set in January 2001, with half the moneycoming from business on the Strip. Meanwhile, a new house gets built here on average every 20minutes, and even that is not enough to keep up with theconvoy of moving vans rolling into town. "I am having a very hard time dealing with sellers rightnow because they are cocky, obnoxious and rude with so manybuyers out there," said Rhonda Brinkerhoff, a real estateagent with Century 21 Express. "I made in the first threemonths of this year what I made in nine months last year.I've sold eight houses in the last two weeks. I have twobuyers from New York, one from California, one from Ohio,one from Tennessee. They come from everywhere." In the early years of the desert boom, most of the arrivalswere fleeing the rust and snow and depressed fortunes ofthe Northeast for a place largely unknown beyond itsscorched landscape. Now they are more typically like the Galloways - failed,flawed or fed-up Californians trading one Western dreamstate for another. Some follow Californian businesses,which are being aggressively courted across the border bythe Nevada authorities with tax breaks and otherincentives. "We have companies moving here from California with all oftheir employees," said A. Somer Hollingsworth, president ofthe Nevada Development Authority, a membership group thatpromotes Clark County. "The rule of thumb is that one-thirdof the people coming here are retirees, one-third come witha job lined up and one-third are looking for a job." But a generation of migration has shattered many illusionsabout the costs of the desert pact. People still findhouses and jobs here, but they also find air choked withconstruction dust, overstretched water supplies, poorhealth care, impossible traffic, soaring rates of teenagesuicide and drug abuse and, seeping outward from the Strip,a 24-hour culture of gambling and sex that many newcomerswith children ultimately find intolerable. In oneindication of how fed up some people have become, motherswith children in tow were among the several hundred peoplewho attended a meeting in March of the Nevada GamingCommission to protest suggestive casino and hotelbillboards. The study by the Fordham Institute for Innovation in SocialPolicy reserved the "social recession" designation given toNevada for the eight states that ranked the worst - from43rd to 50th - in a composite of 16 social indicators,including such things as infant mortality and averagewages, based on data from 2000. Most of the bottom-rungstates were in the Deep South. The survey found that Nevada was 50th in the nation insuicide among the elderly and food stamp coverage, 49th inhigh school completion and 47th in teenage drug abuse. Itranked 46th in homicides, 44th in teenage suicide and 43rdin child abuse. Its only ranking in the top 10 was 4th for"housing cost burden," a measure of the averageconstruction cost of a house in relation to per capitaincome. 'There's No Dream Here' For many newcomers, even the top 10 ranking is noconsolation because they cannot afford to buy a house. An economic analysis prepared for the Nevada governor in2002 showed that newcomers tend to be significantly worseoff financially than other Nevadans. The report said thatthe adjusted gross income of the new arrivals was onaverage 30 percent lower than that of other residents. The Center for Business and Economic Research at theUniversity of Nevada, Las Vegas, estimates that over aquarter of the newcomers to Clark County have a householdincome of less than $25,000 a year. Only one in four has acollege degree. Meanwhile, the cost of housing has soared,jumping 20 percent on new houses and nearly 30 percent onexisting ones in the first three months of this yearcompared with the same period in 2003. "I have no idea why people keep coming," said Ann Sheets,31, a single mother of three girls who is moving back toMichigan, where she grew up. "I tried for two years, evenworking two jobs at a time. There's no dream here. I seepeople at work in the same clothes they had on the daybefore." Ms. Sheets has taken a third-floor room in the BudgetSuites through July, when school lets out and she can leavefor good. She intentionally chose a hotel away from theStrip, which she considers so offensive that she cupped herhands over the ears of her 7-year-old as she spoke aboutit. "You can't even drive down the street without seeingpictures of half-naked women," said Ms. Sheets, who hasworked a variety of jobs, including ones at McDonald's andon the slot deck at a casino. "Any reasonable parent thatwants their kids to grow up and have a future doesn't wantto be here." It was Ms. Sheets who sent the two blankets downstairs tothe Galloways with her middle daughter, Amber, 11. ThoughMs. Sheets had not met the Galloways, she had heard aboutthem and their hopes for this city that she was giving upon. An earnest woman whose Mickey Mouse pullover did littleto lighten the heaviness she exuded, Ms. Sheets wished themwell. "I don't see the future here, but I guess everyone isdifferent," she said. Mrs. Galloway is banking on it. She drove her two daughtersand their pint-size dog, Louie, across the Mojave fromRiverside, Calif., in a 1992 Mitsubishi Mirage lastNovember. Her husband, Tom, an imposing man with thicktattooed arms and a walrus mustache who hauls drywall on abig rig, arrived later. There was not much to take with them. Most of theirbelongings, including the family photo albums and thebig-screen television, were lost when they fell behind inpayments on a self-storage unit. Still, the car, given tothem by church friends, seemed cramped. There was a desktopcomputer, two big suitcases of clothing, a folder withimportant family papers and a small but heavy box with adull brass finish. The box, displayed prominently with a pair of fuzzy diceatop the television in their Budget Suites room, holds theashes of Mr. Galloway's parents. "He fought under Patton and was there when the jeep rolledover on him," Mr. Galloway, 42, said proudly of his father,Nathan, who worked as a trucker in Los Angeles afterleaving the Army. "He helped found the Teamsters. I metJimmy Hoffa." Mrs. Galloway slipped into the other room and returned withher father-in-law's Army discharge orders from the heap ofpapers in the family folder. She also produced a pair ofpatches from his uniform. "Luckily, this was not something we put in storage," shesaid. "We lost all of his medals. They auctioned them offor something." Mr. Galloway took a Pepsi from the refrigerator and settledinto the couch. The dog quickly nuzzled in his lap. "I always liked it here in Las Vegas," he said. "It's freshand new. I hated California. We just figured, let's get outof there." Mrs. Galloway nodded. "The drugs and the gangs there. Theyhave them here, too, but the police seem to be on top ofit." "We figured if we were going to start over again, this wasthe place," Mr. Galloway said. "There is no state incometax here, and it's more likely for us to find work. If Ilose my license, I can always go do maintenance at acasino." "If you aren't careful, you can gamble too much, though,"Mrs. Galloway said. "This is nothing compared to what we've been through," Mr.Galloway said. "Yeah, this is heaven," Jamie Rose said, reaching for acigarette. "It's cleaner here," Mrs. Galloway said. "Look around you.The houses are beautiful and the streets aren't dirtyfilthy." "The schools look nice too," Mr. Galloway said. "They say the Mafia takes care of them," Mrs. Gallowaysaid. "They all have air-conditioning and computers, andthe libraries are nice." The girls have not gone to school since they moved here,but Mrs. Galloway has filled out the enrollment papers forBreanne, who shares her mother's smile and neighborlinessand has taken to wearing a scarf over hair she just coloredblack cherry. Jamie Rose, whose bared midriff reveals a piercedbellybutton, said she would rather start working to helpthe family get back on its feet. She keeps the card of atalent agent she was handed while watching Sandra Bullockfilm "Miss Congeniality 2" at the Klondike casino severalmiles down the boulevard. Getting that card is one of thefew stories that makes Jamie Rose smile and seem likesomeone who just turned 17. Before their car broke down ina department store parking lot, where they finally justleft it, the Galloways drove to the casino regularly forits 69-cent dinner special. "My dream is to be an actress and have enough money to buymy dad a truck and my mom a house and a Viper," Jamie Rosesaid. "You know what my dream is?" Mrs. Galloway said. "I'd liketo be able to go the market and not have to put anythingback." "My own room and my own bed," Jamie Rose continued. "Ahouse with a yard to work in," Mrs. Galloway said. Mr. Galloway's cellphone rang. "Tom," he answered."That's the signal," Mrs. Galloway said. "He's done here.He has to go back to work." Mr. Galloway hung up. "They're waiting for me," he said."Daddy, can I go to Wal-Mart?" Jamie Rose asked quickly. "Iwant to go shopping and buy a bathing suit and bras." "You want to go to Silverton's for chicken-fried steak?"Mrs. Galloway offered. "No, I don't need to go," Jamie Rose said. "It's yourbirthday," Mrs. Galloway said. "No, no," Jamie Rose said. "It's too expensive." "Wesaved for it," Mrs. Galloway said. "Don't worry." Jamie Rose watched from the parking lot as Mr. Gallowayjumped the back fence to get to his truck, the rumble ofthe diesel engine muffling the shouts of boys playingbasketball with a storage shed roof as the hoop. Mrs. Galloway finger-combed her matted curls, straightenedher faded cotton tank top and asked a visitor for a ride toa church near the airport, which was handing out soup,canned meat and rice that day. She spoke mostly about howgrateful she was to be starting a new life, but she criedall the way. Articles in this Series: TODAY The Budget Suites TOMORROW Mrs. Noble TUESDAY JudgeHardcastle WEDNESDAY Trixie THURSDAY Graciela Diaz FRIDAY Billy V.

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