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Seekers, Drawn to Las Vegas, Find a Broken Promised Land

``...Inside the no-frills rooms, where sheets and blankets cost extra, a desert city's promise of new beginnings is regularly put to the test. This busy hotel and others in the Budget Suites of America chain are the cinder-block equivalent of circled wagon trains, a community of dreamers, pioneers and strivers pulling up for a while en route to someplace and something better.

``Many newcomers to Las Vegas use the Budget Suites to find their footing in the slippery city, the eye of a population storm that has transformed the American desert from forlorn frontier to chosen land over the last three decades.

``Based on federal tax returns, the Internal Revenue Service estimates that nearly 55,000 people gave up on their dream of living in southern Nevada last year and moved elsewhere.

``The Budget Suites require no long-term commitments or credit cards. While that means little to guests with financial resources, it opens the doors to legions of credit-unworthy Americans. They arrive with a basic yearning for a good job and a house, regardless of the bumps on the road that brought them here.

``...Denny Cowie, who took a room in the building behind the Galloways after a divorce, holds a dark view of the hundreds of dreamy-eyed migrants he has encountered.

``...Many dreams here go bad, Mr. Cowie explained between sips of beer outside his second-floor room, and his neighbors inevitably come begging - for alcohol, cigarettes, food and money. The downward spiral can get ugly, he said.

``This is Las Vegas, after all, a place of seduction and delusion that treats its residents much like its visitors, anointing some as instant kings and queens while stubbornly refusing to make good on its promise to countless others..."

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